Ephemeral Moments

When you're pregnant, people tell you that your life will never be the same once your baby arrives, but it's hard to fully prepare for it.  My son was born six weeks ago and the time has passed by in a flash.  Our initial days together have blended into one short window of time, yet it seems ages ago that I gave birth.

It's still strange to call him my son.  Just as it took time to start calling my boyfriend my husband after our wedding, I'm still not used to calling this baby that I carried for forty weeks and one day my son.  It sounds so official.  It's as if the use of that noun immediately moves me into the realm of full-fledged adulthood.  It was a move I was ready to make but it just hasn't entirely sunk in yet.

My maternal feelings are growing more every day.  It wasn't love at first sight as some mothers describe it, rather my son initially felt like a stranger to me.  Even though he shares half of my genetics and was a fixture inside me for nine months, it still took time for us to get to know one another once he entered the world.  We experienced some struggles the first four weeks but seem to have figured each other out recently.  I've become better at deciphering his needs and wants and he has become more reassured by me.  It's still a bit surreal at times to realize this baby belongs to me, is part of me, and that I am currently responsible for 99% of his health and wellness.  It's both sobering and comforting to realize how much he needs me at this stage of his life and how his future self will be influenced by how well I care for him now.

During the intense crying jags or the 3:00 am feedings I sometimes think wistfully about a time down the road when my son will be able to tell us what he wants and will sleep through the night, but I'm making a concerted effort to appreciate everything about these early days. I know many parents that look back longingly on this newborn period, and everyone says that kids grow up so fast.  There must be something to that cliché.  Therefore, I'm consciously trying to savor each moment with my son because there's no reversing to clock once you realize how precious this time was.


So, although I'm looking forward to the day he can walk along a trout stream with me and turn over rocks to find caddis casings, I'm appreciating the time I have with my son right now.  I inhale the smells of his milk breath and diapers, both of which only a mother can love.   I watch his eyes flutter and face contort as he falls asleep in my arms.  I enjoy our daily routine, as mundane as it may seem, because I realize how fleeting this window of our lives will be.

For Whom the Bells Tolled

The Earth takes 365.256363 solar days to revolve around the sun.  Only today, on Leap Day, do we notice the extra quarter of a day we accumulate each year.  It's got me thinking about the irrelevancy of the calendar in the grand scheme of things.  Living our lives according to seasons and daylight hours rather than the calendar and clocks might be a refreshing change.  I realize it's not practical for an "advanced" civilization like ours, but wouldn't it be nice to rise with the sun rather than with the alarm clock?  Wouldn't it be nice to plan your life around your core survival rather than a Monday-Friday work schedule?

I saw an eagle at the top of a large tree on my way to school this morning.  The eagle schedules its day around its survival:  it wakes with the morning light, feeds when it's hungry, seeks shelter when it's cold, and roosts when it's dark.  When life gets complicated, I envy the simplicity of mere survival.

Throughout most of my life, a school bell dictated my daily, weekly, and yearly schedules.  As a student for seventeen years and as a teacher for eight years, my comings and goings were directed by a strict bell system.  My school day began with a bell ring at 8:09 am and was followed by bells throughout the entire school day signaling the beginning and end of each period.  My lunch break and bathroom break began and ended with bells.  Another bell signaled the end of my workday.  A bell signaled the start and end of each school year, and bells book-ended the start and finish of spring and winter recesses. 

I didn't realize how restrictive this bell-controlled life was until I left it.  Bells no longer direct my comings and goings these days; my life is now run by a bell-less system set up by my own devices.  I start my day when I need to and work until my work is done.  I eat lunch when I'm hungry, use the bathroom when needed, and sleep when I'm tired.  Within a given year, I work as hard if not harder now than I did when teaching, but the absence of bells dictating my schedule throughout the day provides a freedom that many people take for granted.

Another big change that came with my recent career change involves my time outdoors.  As a student and teacher, much of my day took place in a climate controlled building under depressing fluorescent lights.  During the winter months, I would arrive at school before the sun broke the horizon and not get back home before the sun set.  During this time, the only chance I had to be outdoors was on trips between my car and the high school entrance.  There were many nights when I had an overwhelming urge to take a walk around the neighborhood just to get a breath of fresh air, feel a breeze against my cheek, take in the scent of rotting leaves, and feel some fleeting connection to nature. 

Nowadays, I'm outside for at least ten hours most days--rain, shine, snow, hot, or cold.  My days are now very heliocentric; they're highly influenced by the number of daylight hours and the tilt of the Earth's axis.  This new exposure to the outdoors is a refreshing change.  It keeps me in touch with the phenology of nature, which doesn't always follow a strict schedule based on the Gregorian calendar.  Rather than anticipating the weekend or counting down the days until summer break on the school calendar, I'm now anticipating the advent of spring, the last frost date, the arrival of Japanese beetles, the blooming of hydrangeas, and the first snowfall. 

Though I still hear the muted sound of recess bells tolling on the playground of the nearby elementary school as well as the hourly church bells on Main Street, I am happy to be living life in the absence of this hourly dictator. 

The bells no longer toll for me.

"Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way." 

"There is only now and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you will never get, you will have a good life."  

                                                - Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

                                           

Pieces of Paper

I stand before you the owner of a crisp, new piece of paper.  I officially completed a master's degree last month in natural resources, specifically in the field of environmental education.

Who knew it would be so anticlimactic?

I've always been a huge proponent of education, which likely stems from my familial influence.  Although neither of my parents finished college, it was drilled into my head early on that education was the way to success.  Lucky for me, I breezed through public education and, when it came time for college, it wasn't even a question of IF I was going to college, but rather WHERE I would go.  As it turned out, I only applied to one college, was accepted the fall of my senior year, and headed to UW-Madison on a full ride the following summer. 

I did well in college, but when it came to the end of my sophomore year when most students begin choosing their career paths, I had trouble figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.  It now seems unfair to expect kids at that age to pick out a major that will likely influence a large portion of their working lives.  At the time, my main interests were in the areas of biology, environmental science, and athletics, so in the end I applied to the School of Education where I received my teaching degree.  I taught high school biology and coached basketball and softball for the next eight years.

As a fresh-faced public educator, I wasn't looking to get rich--anyone who says public educators are in it for the money obviously does not know many teachers--but I realized the fastest way to increase my salary was to earn an advanced degree, hence the start of the master's program.  I chose a program in environmental education because I knew it would help improve my classroom curriculum, and being the Granola that I am, I was already interested and well versed in the area.  So through online courses, weeks of summer classes, and roughly $10,000 in tuition expenses, I finally came to the final stages of the program.  That's when I quit my job.

To make a long story short, I left teaching at the end of the 2009-2010 school year in order to help my husband run our small business.  Neither of us regret that decision, but it left me three credits short of completing the now obsolete degree.  There was no question in my mind that I would complete the degree--I had invested too much time and money to fumble at the 1-yard line--so I completed my last course this past summer and pounded out the dreaded THESIS.

It was daunting at the time, but I finally completed my research project last fall, and it can be found in the UW-Stevens Point library system from here to eternity.  It's entitled,

An Evaluation of the Extent to which the Infusion of the Wisconsin Grade 12 Environmental Education Standards into an Elective Biology Course Impacts the Environmental Attitudes of High School Students.

With a title like that, how could anyone pass it up?

So here I sit, staring at this piece of paper that tells me I have an important new degree---a degree that I will likely never use.  If I were still teaching, the skills and knowledge I gained through this degree would definitely be utilized, but as that's not the case anymore, I wonder if this diploma now represents a huge waste of time and money.  I obviously could not have foreseen this outcome when I first began the process, but hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn't it?  With the way my state has started treating public educators, it doesn't look like my teaching salary would have been improved through this degree anyway.  So I'm happy to have completed this master's program, but as stated earlier, it's very anticlimactic.

So for now, this diploma will get tucked away for safe keeping.  Perhaps it will become useful down the road, but just as likely it will not.  On the bright side, I just realized that I was only the second in my family to complete an undergraduate college degree and the first to receive a graduate degree.  I guess that's something to be proud of, and, like my dad said, no one can ever take this new degree away from me........

though I would consider selling it for $10,000.


 

Returning

Few people have the opportunity to revisit a past life and be reminded of why they enjoyed it, why they left it, and why they don’t want to return to it.  I am presented with this opportunity frequently.

This morning I woke up in the dark, felt my cat stir against my head, and made my way downstairs.  I walked across the cool wood floors to the cold tile of the bathroom and began my old morning routine.  It’s funny how these day-to-day routines come back so naturally even after being abandoned for new ones.  The smell of coffee soon permeated the house, and I stared at the crescent moon while eating my oatmeal.  Soon I was in my car headed west, watching the light break over frosted pastures and fields of corn stubble as I was brought back to a previous life.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was a high school biology teacher for most of my second decade of life.  Through a lot of hard work and determination, I became exceptionally good at my job.  I had the ability to make difficult content understandable and interesting for many of my students.  Most aspects of teaching came naturally to me, but others required a lot of effort.  As an innately introverted person, it took a lot of effort to be a leader at the head of the class everyday.  In the end, I created a very successful science curricula and gained respect within my school and community.  That’s why it was so difficult to leave.

After much thought and deliberation, I chose to leave my teaching career to help my husband with our small business.  Being the left-brained thinker that I am, I made list after list of the pros and cons involved in this decision.  I thought of the money and carbon emissions I would save by giving up my long daily commute but also of the money we would lose by having to pay for our own health insurance.  I thought of the extra time I would have to spend with my husband and of the increased flexibility I would have in my daily schedule but also of losing a regular paycheck.  I ultimately went with my gut.  I knew in the long run that leaving my job would be better overall for my happiness, but it was the guilt that kept placing seeds of doubt in my mind.  I not only felt guilt about abandoning students and coworkers, but also about abandoning something I was good at.  I was raised to work hard and see things through, not to quit a task when it became difficult or you grew tired of it.  I was very good at teaching.  How could I simply quit something I had worked so hard to build up?

I eventually got past this guilt, realizing that I am good at a lot of things, but those things need not define me.  It seems so simple now, though it was a difficult thing to accept at the time.  Just because I am talented at something does not mean I'm obligated to do it or even enjoy it.  I may have been a good teacher, but teaching is not who I am.  Once I felt deserving of a lifestyle that puts happiness ahead of perceived obligations, I was able to move forward.  I was finally able to accept that it was okay to make decisions based on my happiness and well-being.  That realization was very liberating. 

It’s been a year and a half since I left my career, but I'm often presented with opportunities to be my old self by subbing for my replacement.  On these days I’m transported back in time and become Ms. K in my old classroom, teaching my old curricula.  I get a chance to remember why I enjoyed teaching but also why I'm not interested in returning completely to my old role.  I get to reconnect with my colleagues and students but avoid those things that wore me down.  These opportunities help me appreciate my past life and to acknowledge the courage it took for me to bet on a new one.