Summer Madness

This coming Monday, I will return to work (sort of). I'll bring the kids into my room, breathe in the 5 coats of wax on my floors, struggle to find something for my two little ones to do and start unpacking drawers, sharpening pencils and fret over the first week of school. If the kids really knew that I'm just as scared they are going to revolt on the first day, I'd be working in the book warehouse.

This August also brings some self reflection time, some pertaining to the new year, what I want to do differently, looking over months long notes I wrote to myself in professional development seminars and idea forums, trying to construct some kind of meaning from them. I recall ideas driving, and swerve to place them on a sticky note on my phone, etch them into a notebook, stitch them into the very fibers of my shirt. I hear a good tune on the radio, all is lost.

Personally, it's also a time to reevaluate my goals, my past year, my imperfections and chest-thumping.

Perhaps it's because my birthday, perhaps it's my own conscious focus on my past failures and trying to somehow make amends for them. Three years ago, I gave my life to God. Having been someone who had no idea what that really meant, I've been striving for the right to proclaim it loud in the streets. To me, it's more than being a Republican, or a conservative, or having a value system, or whatever labels Christians get lumped in with. But the last three summers, I've done the exact opposite of what being a true believer would exercise.

So, here I am, doing yard work this last Thursday, at least attempting to do so with a stubborn weed eater that never stays on long enough to bend a weed stem. I threw a monumental tantrum, the kind that if caught on youtube, would have been one of those that would have generated hundred's of posts about "that crazy dude." On top of that, I end up crying myself to sleep about how blessed of a family I have at 3am after a round of card playing and sharing dinner jokes.

Needless to say, on the eve of my 36th birthday, losing patience with the dry erase board schedule that seems to be shrinking with available days, knowing that I was possibly more bummed out by not going to Texas like we had planned took more of an effect on me than I realized (as for that reason, what an unpublished bit of work that would become!), and that my loved ones are rooting for me to succeed. I used to think those in my inner circle were secretly wishing for my demise, to bring me down a notch, to show me just how fragile life can be by yanking the rug right out from underneath. Perhaps it was MY wishing that on others is why I have such a workable knowledge on that area. Oh, the life of a selfish man!

But teaching will arrive soon. In a song I heard at church, God has "potter's hands" because of how he shapes our lives, makes us whole and each of us, unique and gifted beyond belief. In a sense, I know he has shaped me, and is allowing me to build upon the foundation originally set by him, crafted with a future unseen by only him. How cool is that, that I am allowed to water the roots of a young mind? It surely is a kick in the head!

So, Happy Birthday to my new students, and to my loved ones. You have brought life into my mind and body, built onto my foundation, and have made me the man I have become.