quality over quantity

"I wanna set the world on fire, 

and see it burning bright for You.."

~ Britt Nicole, "Set the World on Fire"

If you know me, you know that I am a girl of many dreams.

My biggest, most-consuming one has been to be a mom.  (Can I say that without sounding desperate or cliche?  What if our truths are sometimes cliche?)

... Followed by being a teacher.  (Which I love most of the time, but the increasing pressures being put on this profession by the state make me think that this may not be a forever thing if I value my sanity-- story for another day!)

I have been passionate about finding love, mostly because I am head-over-heels for my family, friends, and people in general, and I always thought finding a partner would just fit so darn perfectly. :)

After a few years of not finding that, I began to embrace a different dream of moving to Latin America to teach there for a while.

When I take a deep breath and ask myself what I want, sometimes I become so overwhelmed I'm almost dizzy.

I want to live in Latin America.

I want to get married and have a family here.

I want to have 6-8 babies.

I want to be a stay-at-home mom.

I want to have enough money to give my kids experiences.

I want to adopt at least one child.

I want to carry my own children.

I want to never go back to teaching after having kids.

I want to get my ESL/ Bilingual certs and continue my educational career.  Maybe even go back for guidance counselor...

...Um.

I am starting to realize that even though we may have tons of dreams, it is impossible for us to have them all at once.

I can move to Nicaragua or I can live in the U.S. and continue to build relationships with the people and school I am learning to call home.  (Choosing the latter, by the way.)

I can have tons of kids or I can perhaps have less and be able to stay at home and/or give them nice things. 

It's about quality over quantity.  I'm thinking it's okay if we don't get all our dreams at once, because it gives us a chance to pay attention to the direction that God is pointing us in.  (He has done an incredible job so far, so I am not giving up now!)

Here's to zeroing in on lives of quality.  I'm not going to stop dreaming, though.  Somebody came up with the expression "A girl can dream" for a reason! ;) 

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” *

I have not blogged in forever, mostly due to the fact that I used to write about the struggles journey of being a single woman, and at the moment I am not that girl.  And while the man I am dating is confident in ways that most days I can only aspire to be, I feel like any time before, oh I don’t know, the 10 month mark might be a little too soon to start making blog posts about our relationship.  But I have missed expressing myself through words and more than that I have missed the “me toos” of friends and family, distant and intimate, so here goes!

I am happier than I have been in a long time at work, at home, and in my relationships.  (I don’t feel stuck anymore.)  I am grateful for a supportive administrator at school, a team-mate (work wife) in my classroom, a healthy and loving relationship, and an apartment that is close to my parents and the beach (not to mention 3 minutes from my work)!

I actually feel like I am right where I need to be.  I sleep better these days, knowing that is true.  It feels amazing.

K.  However…

I miss my North Jersey friends.  And I miss my old students with an ache that physically will not leave me.  I still can’t look at pictures of them!  I miss my old work family and how easy it was for me to get together with my girlfriends there for last-minute Thai food and wine.  I miss being able to say, “I teach with my best friends.”

When I first moved and started working here, I thought to myself, “This will get easier.  One day, you’ll be able to look back at your old school/ life, and you won’t miss the people who were a part of that as much.”  It has been several months and the missing them part has Not. Gotten. Easier.

But the truth is, I always have had a hard time letting go of people, places, and experiences.  Saying goodbye has always been painful for me.  (Isn’t it this way for all of us, if the thing we’re letting go of was ever worth having in the first place?)  My sister will tell you I get sad leaving people I meet on vacation.  (Not even other guests.  The people who work there.  I still haven’t gotten over Leroy, our maintenance man who fixed our hot water situation in Jamaica.  Leroy, if you’re reading this, I love you. :)  )  My heart still hurts for Honduras.  (My dream of going back there hasn’t gone away either.  But let’s save that for another day.)  And the 12 hour car ride home from visiting relatives in Ohio is always a sad, long trip—I get melancholy about leaving my cousins then too, even though I know I will see them again the following year!

The other day I wondered to myself about what it would be like to not feel this way…  To not have my heart hurt for experiences and people I have loved, feelings I have felt deeply.  Would I be happier, would life be easier, if goodbyes were easier to say?  If I didn’t seem to get attached to anyone and everyone I meet?

No, I think I prefer it this way.  To know that even if it hurts like hell to let go, to know that I lived and loved the most that I could at each moment.  So I will probably continue to miss my North Jersey friends, but I will find peace in the fact that if we always stay in the same place, we can’t grow.  And hopefully someday soon, I’ll be able to look at pictures of my old kids again, and smile! ;)

* Title quote taken from Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger