october

tomorrow, my favorite month of the year will begin.  i will be in an exceedingly happy mood for 31 whole days.  i will take on the personality of a real outdoorsman, walking in parks, kicking leaves, humming jazz tunes.  i will perfect my chili recipe and my house will smell like candles and apple crisp.  

i will breathe more deeply in october.  i will stop and smell the leaves burning (roses have nothing on that smell).  i will wear bulky grey sweaters that banish all previous summer breakdowns while trying to squeeze into sleeveless sundresses.    

i will pretend to like football.

i will brave halloween, which has always scared the crap out of me.

i will brave my 36th birthday, which is scaring me more than all the halloweens combined.

and, most importantly, i think i'll forget about my troubles for a whole month.  i have next-to-nothing that "should" trouble me.  and yet, most days, i find myself forming a grand canyon-sized crease right between my eyes.  

see, that's the thing; we worry, which does nothing but create wrinkles and grey hair and makes us eat processed foods.  the outcome ~ we look in the mirror and life goes, "now i'll give you something to worry about.  look at you!"  

but what worries me the most is how quickly we move from worry to worry.  when i wrote my last blog entry, i was at my wits' end.  i felt like i couldn't teach another lesson.  but i did and i had a blast doing it.  my money situation has been, and continues to be, dismal.  but i've sort of gotten used to it and now i don't have a psychotic break when my bank account has $6 in it.  in fact, i think, "great, i'm in the plus."  

when i look back on september and how i handled some real life challenges, physically, mentally, spiritually?  honestly, i'd give myself a C-.  and since i'm at midterm, there's still time for me to bring that grade up to an A+.

starting with lovely OCTOBER!!!!

I'M BACK!!

and of course, back when i'm at a low.  what a fair-weather friend i am to my healing little blog.  sorry blog!  and i should probably say, sorry God, as well.  

i pulled up my blog after more than a year of no posts, and the previous two blogs were a direct message to me.  from me.  huh?  spoooooky....

the last message ~ A SETBACK IS JUST A SETUP TO A COMEBACK.  forgot about that little fun quip.  i am feeling a setback because i am not loving the whole teaching thing lately.  in fact, i'm having visceral, toxic reactions to it (just ask my boyfriend.  new character in the blog!!!)

hmmm, i say to myself, what else can i do, what else can i do for a living, is there anything else i can do for money?  (crickets chirping)  this is my not-so-healing mantra as of late.  but i am letting those thoughts ruminate in hopes that there is a reason for my discontentment.  

and then i run onto my latest blogs and see that i was totally content and ridiculously happy one year ago, having the same job.  i know ~ people change, right?  and i'm about to be 36 in a few weeks and, well, it's textbook.  men have midlife changes (i.e. red ferrari and hair plugs), women have midlife hormone-induced personality breakdowns.  could i please have the ferrari instead?  what's that? ~ have to change my career and earn more money to have the red ferrari?  damn the system.  catch 22.  moral of this short story:  turns out you can have all the life crises that you want and it will be fantastic AS LONG AS YOU HAVE MONEY.  have we learned ANYTHING since the days of jane austen?  i swear!!!!

so here i am, listing my assets.  hoping for a match.  hey, i made a list of the type of guy i wanted, after years of being admonished to do so, and voila!  enter lovely boyfriend ~ who would probably think i am deranged if he ever got his hands on this blog.  maybe.  no.  he'd probably say i should write a book or something like that.  he's THAT supportive, girls.  is he real?  

which brings me to my first asset:  

1.  i think i might be able to write.  a book could be in my future.  about life?  women?  teachers and teaching?  blog for now, but maybe more later?  who knows.  very enticing.  

2.  i know the singing thing will always be in my life and i have to make sure there's room for it.  therefore, no high-powered job that keeps me there till 8pm.  not that i have the skills to get one of those.  probably no owning a cafe/bar either ~ there's no room for anything else, like singing, and singing is my calling.  

3.  i can cook.  i can definitely cook.  i really love it too.  to have a cake or lunch biz, or something like that, would be a dream.  well, i did the lunch thing and totally loved it.  but if i do it again, i want to do it right.  i want an assistant and i need to have a professional, inspected kitchen.  that costs money and i'm fresh out of that.

4.  i can teach.  well, i think i can teach.  people say i can teach.  my take on it?  i'm good energy.  those kids get thirty minutes of an adult with good energy and a smart sense of how to live life. and an adult who really listens to them.  in addition to that, i'm a good musician, so i teach them everything i know.  i know how to get good sounds out of them, to a certain extent.  after that point, i just don't care.  i lose interest very easily.  which is how i describe a good teacher ~ a person who never gives up and never loses interest and pushes that student relentlessly.  have i ever done that?  no.  

5.  here's my biggest asset.  it's a weird one, but worth mentioning.  i'm interesting.  i'm fabulous?  not really ~ i mean i could be if given the opportunity to be.  my girlfriend jennyis the wikipedia definition of fabulous.  i'm sure of it.  she works at the fort worth opera and it is a hard job with long hours.  she puts so much into her work.  but a big part of her job is to be, well, fabulous.  she's there for every event, making sure she places her midas touch of fabulosity on everything the company does.  they are brilliant to have hired her.  people have whole careers based on the fact that they have impeccable taste.  i don't have that, but i do have a certain "je ne sais quoi".  i will admit that.  and i need to admit it because it's draped around everything i do and could bring me success in the future, if i acknowledge it.  the only caveat to having this E.Q. (emotional quality, versus I.Q. ~ known to be more important in job interviews than a high I.Q.) is that everything has to has verve and artistic interest to me and i have a hard time just doing mundane, everyday things.  big handicap.

speaking of which, must get into shower, so i can go be mundane and teach college kids the notes to their songs.  thank you, blog, for letting me drone on and on about myself and not nodding off even once.

love, pixy