Wow. It's been almost a month since I've posted.
This is the second week of class and I've hit the ground running. Let's backtrack:
1. The beach with my fiancé's family was lovely. I turned a nice shade of gingerbread (instead of my usual caramel), got lots of breezy reading done, took long walks on the beach and watched the sunrise. Twice. There is truly something beautiful and bonding about watching the sunrise with someone you love. I got to know his family a little bit better. Which means I got to know him a little bit better.
2. Before we even got back, I was blindsided with the news that I was the instructor of record for a literature course. I should've been happy about it (teaching literature, after all, is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life), but I was kind of flipping out because I've actually never been in charge of designing a real, live syllabus before. Thankfully, one of my colleagues super helped me out getting things together, and now I really enjoy it. I really have a good group of students. Latino Literature and Culture. I'm also teaching a section of the second part of Elementary Spanish. Fun, fun, fun.
3. So, my fiancé's dad sent us a really nice chunk of change for the wedding and my fiancé suggested we open an account to deposit all of our wedding money. I am positively giddy at the prospect of opening an account together. Omg. It will be like our first shared thing. Like the first thing that we've owned and established together. It's like, once we open an account together, we're firmly on the marriage road. It's goin down.
4. I have to describe this sweet thing. It's a simple thing, but it's a sweet thing. And the little things, the simple things, are the sweetest. My fiancé has class at 11 and he gets out right as I leave to go teach my 12:20. The building where his class is held is not far from the building where I teach. Usually, when we come to campus together and he leaves for his 11 o'clock, I don't see him again until later in the day. But yesterday, when I was on my way to my 12:20, I saw him on the corner waiting for me, watching for me. When he spotted me, he came over, hugged and kissed me and said, "I just wanted to see you." Just the image of him standing there waiting for me, watching for me because he was unsure of which way I would come, the smile on his face when he saw me, the simple fact that he just wanted to see me, however briefly, before I had to go teach...there was something genuine and pure about that moment. There was something about it that I wanted to hold close. Something about it that I wanted to preserve forever.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Friday, August 01, 2014
Turn It Off
There's a worrier in my brain and sometimes I want more than anything to turn it off.
The end of this summer is quickly approaching, and I almost feel like I have nothing to show for it.
Things started off rather suckily with my losing my summer assistantship and then having to embark on a job scramble at the last minute in June. I know, I should be thankful I was even able to find a job. I really can't complain. I was able to find a decent, non-stressful job for the summer which still allowed me time to work on other things.
However, I have been so unmotivated work wise. I should be writing my dissertation right now. But I've been listless. I have been plodding along with a book review, and I guess there is that thing called a wedding I've been helping to plan as well, but I still feel like I've wasted a wealth of time. It's a bad feeling. Knowing you could have done so much more.
If I sat here and started listing the things that the worrier in my brain bothers me about, it would just be overwhelming. That and unnecessary. I really just need to take a deep breath and concern myself with today. With things that I have control over right now. Like finishing that book review. Sigh.
Next week is the last week of work before my fiancé and I leave to go to the beach for several days with his family and then come back to get geared up for the fall. I'll have the opportunity to get to know his family better and have the chance to meet people I haven't met yet. It's going to be a nice time. But there is this niggling sense of anxiety over it. Like I will somehow be uncomfortably on display. There is no reason for me to feel this way. I honestly need to get over it because I am becoming more and more aware of how my worries can negatively impact my relationship with my fiancé, and that is the last thing I ever want to do.
I cannot express how profoundly we are connected. When I read the sentence I just typed, it seems overblown, cliché, but I don't know how else to express it. A young lady at church recently had a baby and we went to the hospital to visit. We both took turns holding him and he was a simply healthy, beautiful boy. When I saw how my fiancé held him and interacted with him I was just overwhelmed with this sense of beauty and longing. He's going to be a good husband and father, I know it. I want to have beautiful, healthy children with him, and I try to shut out the voices that remind me of decreasing fertility and increased risks that come with age. (I'm older than I look. Believe me.)
Any time we're together, all that matters is that I'm with him. We just signed a couple of contracts with vendors and businesses for the wedding and we both expressed this feeling of accomplishment, this realization that this is actually happening. I get excited about the simplest things with him—taking long walks to get frozen yogurt, buying new guitar strings, watching a Charlie Chaplin movie. When he holds me close he says, "You fit perfectly. Right here." And it's true. As if we were literally made for each other. There's this indescribable genuineness that our relationship consists of that is overwhelming. I want to preserve it, protect it, enjoy this precious thing that we have without any worries.
The end of this summer is quickly approaching, and I almost feel like I have nothing to show for it.
Things started off rather suckily with my losing my summer assistantship and then having to embark on a job scramble at the last minute in June. I know, I should be thankful I was even able to find a job. I really can't complain. I was able to find a decent, non-stressful job for the summer which still allowed me time to work on other things.
However, I have been so unmotivated work wise. I should be writing my dissertation right now. But I've been listless. I have been plodding along with a book review, and I guess there is that thing called a wedding I've been helping to plan as well, but I still feel like I've wasted a wealth of time. It's a bad feeling. Knowing you could have done so much more.
If I sat here and started listing the things that the worrier in my brain bothers me about, it would just be overwhelming. That and unnecessary. I really just need to take a deep breath and concern myself with today. With things that I have control over right now. Like finishing that book review. Sigh.
Next week is the last week of work before my fiancé and I leave to go to the beach for several days with his family and then come back to get geared up for the fall. I'll have the opportunity to get to know his family better and have the chance to meet people I haven't met yet. It's going to be a nice time. But there is this niggling sense of anxiety over it. Like I will somehow be uncomfortably on display. There is no reason for me to feel this way. I honestly need to get over it because I am becoming more and more aware of how my worries can negatively impact my relationship with my fiancé, and that is the last thing I ever want to do.
I cannot express how profoundly we are connected. When I read the sentence I just typed, it seems overblown, cliché, but I don't know how else to express it. A young lady at church recently had a baby and we went to the hospital to visit. We both took turns holding him and he was a simply healthy, beautiful boy. When I saw how my fiancé held him and interacted with him I was just overwhelmed with this sense of beauty and longing. He's going to be a good husband and father, I know it. I want to have beautiful, healthy children with him, and I try to shut out the voices that remind me of decreasing fertility and increased risks that come with age. (I'm older than I look. Believe me.)
Any time we're together, all that matters is that I'm with him. We just signed a couple of contracts with vendors and businesses for the wedding and we both expressed this feeling of accomplishment, this realization that this is actually happening. I get excited about the simplest things with him—taking long walks to get frozen yogurt, buying new guitar strings, watching a Charlie Chaplin movie. When he holds me close he says, "You fit perfectly. Right here." And it's true. As if we were literally made for each other. There's this indescribable genuineness that our relationship consists of that is overwhelming. I want to preserve it, protect it, enjoy this precious thing that we have without any worries.
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