Chaos & Choices

I did that thing again where I said I would be better and more present, and then I disappeared again. I apologize, and I'll try to stop making promises that I clearly have trouble keeping.

This summer I started querying my book, The Sandman's Apprentice; it got some requests, but ultimately nothing but rejections, and while I love this story, something just isn't right about it, and I don't know that I can fix it right now. Maybe it's just that the writing is still from a younger me and I can't make it better, or maybe I'm not telling it right or well enough, but whatever it is, it requires more than I can give it at the moment. Hopefully one day I'll come back to it and do it justice. It's time to move on.

I also packed up and moved to Oklahoma with my mother; it didn't last long for long, emotional, complicated reasons, and now I'm back in Russellville, AR where I belong. For years I swore I didn;t want to teach and wouldn't be a teacher. After teaching as a graduate assistant while I pursued my MA, I fell in love with it, more than I anticipated (I initially went back for my MA so I could get licensed to teach high school); and it made me want to stay at the college level. But after two years, I discovered that although I thoroughly enjoyed what I was doing, the setting wasn't quite right for me, so I took a semester off and was clueless about what I wanted to do with my life. Again. Now, I'm back at the college, teaching freshman composition and working towards secondary education licensure, getting back to the path I started to pursue years ago.

I seem to take the long way to everything. Things can never be easy, because I'm so used to them being difficult that I over complicate even the simplest tasks anymore. But now I know. I know more about me and who I am and what I want and where I want to be. Because that's what life is. It's facing challenges and getting through them and discovering new things in the process. (Which is vague, I know, but not everything has to be specific and detailed to get a point across.)

There are so many things that I want to do and accomplish, and I suppose the only way to actually do them is to carve out the time and commit to them. So, I'll be over here, reading and writing and teaching and crocheting and playing my instruments and spending time with the people who matter most. I'll be back. If there's one promise I always keep, it's that one.