My Realms of Reality

Five years ago, I sat in my bed and bawled because I missed high school more than anything in the world. "Life was so easy! I miss my family!" I would think while I downed a tub of Nutella and watched Mean Girls for the 1000th time- which ironically portrays high school as a really horrible thing, which I didn't seem to notice. I hated university, as in really hated it. No one cared about me at university. "Where's the individuality!?" I would wail as Asians and hipsters passed me on the sidewalk. Alas, my first year at school was not good. But you know, it all changed. Eventually, year by year, I fell more in love with school. By the end of it I couldn't get enough. I would spend hours on campus, when I really didn't need to, just because I loved the feeling of being at school. I made friends, like, real friends. And suddenly I was so interesting! And did you wanna hear about my cool facts I learned in my class?

But, as all things do, it ended. My last day of university I held back tears as I wandered around the campus soaking everything in. That school was my school, and I was not ready to be done with it. Then everything changed really quickly. First, I had a job interview, then I had a job, and suddenly I had left my school for a new one. I was heading back to high school. The one place I missed the most five years before and now I was back at it.

I'm not going to give an account of what I've been up to. It's probably what you can imagine any first-year teacher doing. What I've really been thinking about lately is realms of reality. See, the way I imagine life is that as you go about things you are only within a certain reality. As a teenager, I was in a reality that was centered on friends, The O.C. reruns, and school. I didn't have to worry about a job or making my own food; my reality of life was very limited. When I graduated, and moved away from home to attend school, my reality changed. Suddenly I had to think about paying bills (Okay, my mom helped me write every cheque for about two years...). As the next five years passed, my reality at times seemed to explode, rather than nicely transition, with massive life changes.  Marriage, for example. I don't want to pretend here like marriage is not a massive life change, because it is. Let's all stop pretending like marriage is instantly easy. I've learned the delicate science of living with a man, and that in and of itself has expanded my reality to multiple new levels. ;)

I think everyone has those experiences, whether it's from traveling, or marriage, or children. You're sitting there one minute, and then in the next you realize that your life, along with yourself, has completely changed. Everything you thought was important has shifted, and you need to make room for an entirely new situation. I love that feeling. Isn't it wonderful to think: Wow, I can handle more now than I could yesterday. That's how I'm feeling right now. I have had to become what some people might call an adult, and it's entirely new to me.

I go to school everyday worried that I will do what's best for 100 different kids, and although I don't always succeed, I am constantly being amazed at how much my reality is expanding. My idea about life -and its purpose- about kids, about ideas, about whatever, is constantly shifting. As much as I would somedays love to go back to high school where my realm was tiny and comfortable, I realize that there is so much understanding that I would miss. There is so much more to life, and I'm only starting to get at it. There is so much more expansion for me.

A Plethora Of Pictures

Just some pictures from the past few months:

Part One: Weddings, Cats, and Kids

 Scott and I were both part of our friends' wedding party, and as a bridal party we all got some spray tans. I KNOW, not a great decision on my part. I was orange for two days. For some reason I forgot to put the hair net to my actual hairline (insert: expectations vs. reality of where my hairline really is). Needless to say, I was grateful for my irrational decision to get bangs a few months back.

We love these two! Also, why do us women all love bangs until we get them? This is a mystery to me...

I finished my student teaching. This was the best and hardest two months of my life. Love these kids.

I made the kids some awards the last day of what I loved about them. They returned the favour!

Note: I don't know what to do with my hands... and I am very much out of place. 

We transported some goods for my sister. By goods, I mean a weird cat that had fur like a sheep. Story of my life: "I don't know what to do with my arms!"

S'more s'mores, please!

I wear lipstick everyday. Doesn't matter what I'm wearing, or where I'm going. The other day I put on some really dark lipstick, and Scott had to gently tell me that I looked terrifying.

Part Two: My Birthday!... and food.

My birthday! 

I got a new watch. But don't worry about that too much, instead worry about the fact that I have to physically write "tuition" on my hand because I'm so forgetful. 

I was taken out to lunch to my very first food truck! It was scrum-diddly-umptous. 

Homemade fries? Pulled pork? I'm sold. 

Later, Scott took me out to a delicious Italian place called Picco Lino (Picca lina? Picco Lina? I can't remember... By this point I had eaten myself into a coma).

Gnocchi, and cheese, and gnocchi. 

 Part Three: Selfies, Plants, and... food.

So the other day Scott was showing our friends that he can put a tube of chapstick in his mouth. He succeeded, and I also managed to take a weirdly lit picture of him looking like he's straight out of an exorcist movie. 

Caught Scotty taking a #sassyselfie.

Handsome. 

I don't know how it happened, but Scott and I have become the happy parents of an ever growing family of plants. They truly are our new pets. We say hello to them in the morning, Scott sometimes kisses them goodnight (he insists it will help them grow... okay, I do it too!), and I like to take them outside when it's raining and we hang out together. Also, please note that I have used a water pitcher as a makeshift pot for our lavender... It'll do right? New parent problems...

Aaaaaand, we eat out a lot. 

Just to emphasize my previous point: I have all the best intentions in the world to eat better. If Scott and I eat at home, we are making great choices. The only problem is that sometimes Scott calls me in the middle of an afternoon snack (cultured coconut milk, homemade granola, and fruit), and casually mentions that a food truck selling burgers is open. I didn't even think about leaving my snack behind. Long live red meat and carbs! This is a legitimate issue in our home haha. 

Well, thanks for stinking around!

Stuck In the Middle With You

I'm an 'intro' person of sorts: both introspective and introverted. I would write down a third word starting with "intro" because I'm OCD like that, and I may have just googled "words that start with intro", but alas I don't think I'm very 'introfying', whatever that means. (Just looked it up, and it is 'to increase the impregnating power of '.... hmmm...)

But yes, let's just talk about introspection, haha. I am a very restless person, and I often feel better after some inward thinking. I am one of those people who wanders the library or the streets just thinking, because it helps me to relax the crap down. I don't know how it happened, but today I realized something very monumental about myself while I was walking around campus. It was cold out, and I was wearing a giant sweater that made me feel very "college-y", and it seemed like the school was dead-- probably because it's spring semester, but nevertheless it was very peaceful and quiet. All my best thinking happens when it's a tiny bit chilly and I'm surrounded by silent brick buildings I tell ya!

I thought about how I've been feeling lately. First off, last week was a whirlwind for me. I finished classes, my sister-in-law had a baby, my friends got married, and my cute grandmother passed away. This week, some friends had babies, and others announced they were having babies. All these beginnings and finishings, and I couldn't help but feel like I didn't fit into these things. When I heard some friends were expecting, I silently cried in bed as Scott slept on the other side. Not that Scott and I are actively trying to have a baby, but for some reason I started to feel very left out. I felt like I was missing out on some special new adventure. For the next few days that reaction  was really bothering me. I didn't understand why it got under my skin so much, and thus started my most recent introspection session.

The trees around campus are just starting to bud, and the air feels like it's holding onto winter just barely enough to not let you go without a coat and joyfully lounge around outside. It's a really dampening feeling, but today it kept my senses sharp. I wasn't distracted by anything, and so as I walked I started to mull over the idea of just why I shed some tears the other day. At first I decided that it was just because it has been a hard couple of weeks, and that my emotions had caught up with me, but that didn't sit quite right with me. Next I blamed it on the fact that I haven't had much to do, and so I was just overreacting to something because I have been so sedentary lately. Again, this didn't sit right, because as I have just said I am an introvert and I love nothing more than to sit at home and recharge some nights. Finally, I realized just what has been irking me: I am stuck in the middle.

At the moment, I am off track from most people around me. I'm finishing my undergrad in the spring, whereas most of my class mates finished in April. I'm coming up on my first anniversary, unlike most of my friends who are either single, fresh newlyweds, or marriage veterans with a kid or two. While everyone seems to be finishing up the phase of "figuring it all out", Scott and I seem to be stuck in it, with no near sight of getting out. We are very much in a time where no adventure has started, and no future adventure seems to be coming up any time soon. For this, I started to feel very sad and bitter about things. I felt stuck, and bored, and mostly just left behind on things. I wished that we could be working, and have kids, and heaven forbid even a house (a real house!).

I thought this over for quite some time, then decided to finally head home. All afternoon I let myself feel more and more sorry for just how "middle-y" mine and Scott's life is, until I saw this:

A tiny little playlist that Scott probably didn't think twice about making, just for me. Three songs that define his love for me. I snapped out of my introspective "sharpness", and I thought of that song 'Stuck in the Middle With You'.

Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
And I'm wondering what it is I should do,
It's so hard to keep this smile from my face

No idea the meaning of that song, but those lyrics were a comfort at the time. Scott and I are in a time where we are seemingly 'stuck in the middle', with a lot of beginnings and endings ahead of us, but I realized there is something comforting about the middle. It's relaxed, and it's warm, and it's safe. And best of all, he keeps a smile on my face. As our first anniversary comes up, I feel honoured to be stuck with Scott anywhere.

Especially the middle.