holly wynne approximately

Picking up where I left off, I may as well let you know what, if we’re ever to sit down together for food or beverages, I will not be ordering:

• sushi (she says, choking back sobs)
• local Mexican anything
• frozen pizza (which shouldn’t have been on my menu in the first place)
• a soy chai latte. or soy milk period. or milk of any kind, though I’d just started to handle cow stuff again. or chai anything, most likely.

There will be plenty of other things we can enjoy together. Not for a while, though.

After having spent Saturday with a monster headache and muscle aches and alternating between freezing and sweating, sleeping and moaning, I decided I couldn’t bear to be sick by myself anymore Sunday morning. In what, looking back, was perhaps not my brightest move, I drove the three hours to Nashville to be with my mommy and daddy. I got there just in time to collapse on the couch.

I’ve been here pretty much ever since, every once in a while picking up the laptop to see what’s going on and try to feel human again. I made it out yesterday evening with my parents and had some soup. Today my dad took me to a movie. Both of these outings were beneficial but draining as well.

So, my spring break has not been what I’d hoped. Then again, I didn’t have high hopes as it was–I just needed time to finish grading and get my grades in, finish a project that I’m predicting is going to be disastrous for class Thursday night, do three article critiques for the same class, plan out the rest of my semester, and get some more applications out. And maybe sleep. Hoo boy. Must not hyperventilate.

It’s just that I don’t do well with stress and/or multitasking. I’ve figured out that I usually need to be doing two things at once. For instance, right now I’m blogging and watching a Charlie Brown Easter cartoon. Many nights, I pop in a Netflix to help me get some grading or homework done. I fantasize about just sitting down and watching a movie, yes, but I don’t think it would feel “right” somehow.

Add another distraction to the equation, though, and I’m toast. That’s why some days I just simply don’t want to go in the classroom. Teenagers have no sense of proper space boundaries or volume levels. The beginning of class is often a free-for-all of absentee note-signing, excuse-taking, question-answering, and makeup-work-procuring. They come at me from all directions as I try to check roll, even when I ask them to come to my desk one at a time.

Back to being sick. I’m 99% sure it was the sushi Thursday night. I’ve felt very off the past couple of weeks anyway, though, and as I rested my head in my hands Friday night, body shaking, fearing the inevitable, I knew in a very deep place that some sort of physical breakdown had been on its way for a while. Life–at least as I have perceived it–has been coming at me in much the same way as I described my students.

There’s not much white space left in my margins for me to put senseless little Holly doodles on, and the lead in my pencil needs sharpening anyway. That’s why I have needed this break. Unfortunately, with a break in routine comes time to think. Combine that with food poisoning and the letting-down of my guard around a family who love me, and the breakdown has been emotional as well.

Thankfully, I tend to be a person who can reach a breaking point and then immediately feel hope the lack of which had led to the dark time. I am thankful for that. I am thankful for a family who always welcomes me home and takes care of me regardless of how old I am or ridiculous I act.

I’ve been feeling very stuck lately. I do all this work for a job that is not turning out to be what I bargained for, as well as for classes that are to “prepare” me to do a job I’m not sure I really want to do, at least not for very long. Thing is, though, I don’t know what else to do, and I have this stubborn need to not let it beat me. I really want to enjoy it and feel successful at it someday.

I constantly question myself–what is it I really want in a career? The answer…I don’t really care about a career. It’s not a very liberated thing to say, but it’s true. The things I really want are still in the abstract. If I had to boil them down to an accessible definition, it would be something like this: I want to go places and do things with the person I love more than anyone in the world and who feels the same about me and our children. I want to live somewhere I can feel a part of a community and a congregation. There will, of course, be music, and I want Dorian to be there. And I also want a dog. I will write, and I’d love to teach a couple of classes at the local college and eventually open a little business. Those last couple of things are optional, though. Mountains would be nice as well, but I got spoiled the year I spent in Nashville, so a good thriving city nearby is also a preference.

That really is it. All this other…crap…just feels so far from that. I do know, somehow, that it’s working toward it, though. We shall see, right?

Okay. Post-sick headache and fatigue are setting in. And, my mom just bought me a People magazine, which was part of her healing ritual for me when I would be home sick from school. I love my parents, and I’m leaving in the morning, and it’s time to spend my remaining time with them.