My glory days of sleeping in, watching movies, and having no responsibilities are coming to an end. Monday I must rejoin the work force. I’m feeling sad to see my summer slip out of my hand but I am grateful to have a job that I feel hopeful about. I have had to remind myself that I like to teach and overcome that generalized thought of “ugh, I have to go to work again.”
I leave my summer feeling a bit discouraged that I didn’t read as many books as I wanted to, I didn’t come up with any new lesson plans, nor did I read my Bible like I had hoped to. No, instead the days steadily rolled by gently and lollingly and so much so that each day didn’t seem to ask much of me and so I didn’t give it too much. I do have a tendency to be hard on myself, so I will end this paragraph by saying that I worked hard last school year and I deserved some down time. I think I must have needed it because I took remarkably well to it in the end (at the beginning of the summer I struggled with feeling like I was a bum because I suddenly wasn’t productive at all.)
I did take my first trip to the west coast of the U.S. Prior to this trip I had never been west of Chicago. Chad and I flew out to Las Vegas and I got to know my future brother-in-law and his family. It was really cool to think that they were not just people I was meeting and spending a little time with, but that they are going to be my family. We will all share a last name and we will be in each other’s lives for the rest of our lives.
Vegas itself is kind of like suburban sprawl with one big “strip” of hotels/casinos. The strip area overall is pretty much debased. Entertainment and sex are the King and Queen of Las Vegas, although money is trying to steal the throne. Were it not for our family living there, I would not go back to Vegas for the rest of my days. We did get to go to two health food stores that neither one of us had ever been to; one that I planned on going to and one that we just heard about after we got to Vegas. Finding a new health food store while visiting a new place is like my own version of sight-seeing. I love it. The one we had never heard of is called Wild Oats and they are nationwide, apparently. The other one is Trader Joe’s. Their prices were impressive compared to Whole Foods, but they don’t offer as many organic options. But I still liked it. I appreciate and respect any company that is offering healthy, natural, and organic groceries to us.
The desert was interesting. Kind of. At first all the mountains just looked like large man-made hills of dirt. But up close, they turned out to be rock and some were prettier than others. My appreciation of the land increased as we left the dry, hot land of the desert for the mountainous coast of Los Angeles. We drove our big, white, humongous Chevy Impala through the cascading hills of Hollywood, across Beverly Hills and down Rodeo Drive, and right to the coast of Malibu where we saw dolphins idyllically playing in the water. California is a place that both Chad and I would like to return to. It reminded me of Italy with the beach and mountains both being in one picturesque setting.
So, yes, our summer was blessed. Restful and filled with the excitement of an engagement. And Monday we will return to the “grind,” but hopefully, as I said to Chad today, it will be more like returning to a wave pool where we will get tossed around sometimes but still enjoy the ride and being in the water. We have much to look forward to in these next months as we both start new jobs, and plan our wedding and life together.
As an end note, I have enjoyed writing this journal entry and wonder why it took me so long to write again. I have struggled to know what is worthy of an entry and wondering what I want the purpose of my online journal to be. I’m still not sure but I do know that my 10th graders will inspire some note-worthy entries as I engage with their young, fresh, growing hearts and minds.
