Updates all around

I have a job now!  Which is a huge relief to me.  I am a Special Education Paraprofessional at one of the local elementary schools.  It is a great campus, a great staff, and I'm really excited to meet the students next week when school starts.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  Didn't I just turn down a similar job?  Yes, I did.  I accepted this position because it is way more likely to lead to a teaching position, it's here in Lubbock where I'm far more likely to find a part-time job to supplement my income, and because I felt like I needed to get back in before too much time passed.  I've had friends take a few years off from teaching to have children and have never been able to get back into a teaching job.  The education field is constantly growing and changing and I guess they see you as out of touch if too much time has passed.

In any case, I'm loving it so far!

 

I was visited by my husband a few weekends ago.  It was a great weekend even though I was plagued by a mysterious back injury and we ended up laying low most of the time.  We did drive to Spur so he could see our pups.  Thumper was beside himself.  They really missed each other!  That's about the time that I said, maybe I should head on back to Corpus Christi.  I hadn't found a job and I was feeling like maybe I had made a big mistake.  But Havie so no.  He said that we've made so much progress so far and that he wants to come here when we're ready, so he didn't think me moving back was a good idea.

And I knew he was right.  We both still have work to do, but I'm grateful that things really are getting better for the first time in our relationship.

So, what's the hold up on his moving here?  Well, it's a looooooong story but basically he has a suspended license stemming back to a very old ticket for having no insurance.  We thought it was taken care of (even have documents from the state saying his license was restored) last summer.  On his way back from Wyoming this past fall, he was pulled over for speeding and given a ticket which he paid.  Then right about the time I left, he got a letter saying that his license was re-suspended for a year.  I left him with all of our receipts from our original surcharge payments, the letters from the state saying it was taken care of, etc.  I left it for him to figure out for once.

Turns out, they say we never made our last surcharge payment or reinstatement fee (both of which there are receipts for).  To top it off, if we hadn't, why on earth would they send us a letter stating his license had been restored and send him a new one?  But the year suspension is because he got a ticket on a suspended license!  They said they made the determination sometime between the time they sent his new I.D.  in August and when he got his ticket at the beginning of November, but we were never notified until this May!

Anyway, he hired an attorney, but we found out today that there's nothing that can be done.  I just don't get it.  Even with all of our documentation and all of their screw ups, that suspension stands until next summer.  Since my husband works in corrections, he can't get hired here unless he has his license back.  And we can't afford for him to leave his current job in corrections just to be here with me.

Unless a teaching position opens up for me, it looks like it will be a year from now before we are living together again.  I'm just trying to have faith that it will all work out the way it's supposed to.

As strange as it may seem, I'm really happy right now.  I'm grateful and hopeful.  Life isn't always perfect, sometimes it's downright messy, but it's always good.

No, Thanks

I learned a new vocabulary word today boys and girls!  Oh how I struggled to use it, but you know it felt pretty darn good afterwards.  I may just have to use it more often!

But wait!  Before I dive into that, let me please apologize for my last post.  I was pretty down in the dumps if you couldn't tell.  Sometimes I just have to get that stuff out and then I feel so much better.  I did and I do.

So, back to the subject at hand.

You see, not much has really gone the way I would like it to since I got here.  Well, at first it did.  But lately it's been one thing after another.  The job that I thought was "the one" didn't work out.  I didn't even get an interview.  There are no teaching jobs in this area right now because of a budget issue.  I haven't had even a nibble!

Last weekend while my husband was here visiting, we drove to Spur so he could see our dogs.  While we were there, I asked my grandparents if the local school district might be hiring.  Two phone calls and about 10 minutes later, I had an interview scheduled for the next day.  Only, this wasn't for a teaching position.

It was for a One-on-One Special Education Paraprofessional position.  I would be working with one student all day long.  He was a 4th grade boy with Cerebral Palsy.  One of my duties would be to assist him in using the restroom and cleaning him afterward.  I would be primarily responsible for his education because the entire district only has ONE Special Education teacher.  I would essentially be acting as his teacher, but would not be paid as one.  I knew I couldn't expect much, but I had no idea that they could only offer me $12,000 a year.

I had already done the math for subbing all year and stood to potentially make at least $14,000 if I worked daily for the entire school year.  So, I told him I couldn't take less than $14,000 to even consider the job.

He was able to offer me the $14,000 and then I had a big decision to make.  On the one hand, this was guaranteed money with benefits and a foot in the door, but in a terribly small town an hour away from the city I'm currently living in.  I wouldn't be able to afford to drive back and forth daily and there's no way I can live on my own for $14K, so I would have to move in with my grandparents.  Which wasn't a completely horrible idea.

On the other hand, if I stayed in Lubbock and waited to see if I got hired on to sub, I could also potentially find a second job.  I'd have a better chance of getting my foot into the door with the districts I really want to work for and live where I really want to live, but as of now I'm not hired to sub and there's no guarantee that anyone else will ever want to hire me.

And then there's a million other things that I considered, but it all boiled down to the fact that when I thought about what the job would entail all I could do was feel dread.  So I went to bed last night thinking that I would just have to take my chances and maybe start looking for jobs in other areas altogether.

When I woke up this morning, I was having second thoughts.  I know that no one loves job hunting, but for me it is a particularly heinous form of torture.  I thought it would just be easier to take it and be done with it.  Not to mention that I really didn't want to call the Principal and tell him thanks but no thanks.  I actually started feeling guilty that I was going to turn the job down.

That's when it happened.

All of a sudden I knew that this opportunity came along because I HAD to turn it down.  I had to not settle.  I had to not do the easy thing.  I had to choose the hard thing, the right thing.  As horrible and scary as it is to turn down the ONLY offer I've had, that's exactly what I did because there has to be something better out there for me.

This is me letting it go.  I know it will come and I'm going to stop trying to control WHEN it comes.

The Truth Is...

I just don't trust myself anymore.

You see, I thought I was finally getting somewhere in life.  I thought my marriage was stronger than it had ever been.  We were active in our church.  I was doing things that I really enjoyed with people that I really admired.  I was seeing a future coming together...

Only, I was really wrong.  It all started falling apart.  I was being deceived...  Worst of all, now I'm not sure if any of it was real or not.  I'm not sure who I can trust, most of all myself.

I can't make sense of anything anymore.  I went from feeling like I finally understood this life and where I was going, to feeling like I know nothing at all.  I went from having a family to feeling utterly alone.  I went from a life I had built to living this life that feels like it's borrowed.

I have options, but none of them feel right.  Nothing feels right anymore.  I pray for answers, but I don't get any. I pray for wisdom, courage, anything!  But I feel no relief.  I just don't know what to do.

I can't see the future anymore.  I'm trying to make it through the next hour of my life.  I know this all sounds terribly dramatic.  I hate the sound of it myself.  I make myself sick.  I wish I could just STOP.

But I don't know how to.

Too Much

I

There's so much going on right now.  So much I want to write about.  So much to be said...

Like this mysterious back injury I woke up with Friday morning.

Or the weekend I just spent with my husband.

Or my job offer that I have until Monday to decide about, that I really don't want but might have to take if nothing else comes up this week.

It's just too much for me to process right now.  I have faith that it is all going to get worked out, someday.  Right now I'm in the thick of it and I'm overwhelmed, so I'm officially shutting it down for at least the day.  I'm pretty much stuck in bed with this back strain anyway.