I haven't written for a while. I don't know why. Maybe because things have felt too complicated to articulate. There haven't been many grand revelations and the day to day is full of shift and change. I keep getting cards in the mail reminding me that the next stage of my life may be the most difficult of all. words like "long road" and "challenges ahead" seem to ring out and each reminder brings me back to the question of whether or not I'm just walking around with my head in the clouds. I know the winds are changing and transition is the name of the game, but I'm not all that worried. Maybe because the future is so unknown that worry over its contents totally evades my understanding. Maybe because tomorrow is so up in the air, that next week or next month, or six weeks from now seem quite impossible to even wrap one baby finger around.

I am going to be a teacher soon, I think. But it is summer and I enjoying tank tops and flip flops. I am learning a lot about myself and about teaching and management with the impossible little trouble-makers at work, but I feel as though the life that awaits me in a short number of weeks is far off, floating somewhere near mars. Maybe orbiting. And I wonder how long until I really do have my own classroom, wondering how long before it really hits the fan when i am just out there on my own. In charge. yikes. And realizing that maybe no amount of practice will prepare me for that day because the dynamics are so very different. The difference between guest and hostess. The shoes fit so differently.

So it is summer. my income and lifestyle and goals and ideas are changing so swiftly I hardly have time to stop and adjust my glasses. Full time to unemployment in no time to part time to maybe full time to too much and too tired and too confused. and unbalanced. out of whack. out of sync. unclear. change. I'm okay with change as long as things stay the same.

There is a little sign up at the school where I work that says, "raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a wall." And I think that is also true about being a teenager or a young adult or a recent college graduate or a person. Figuring out life feels much like nailing jello to walls. You nail it, turn and watch it slide down the wall, morphing into something you never thought it could be.

It's a weird time of life, this transition. This space. Finding shifting sands as a normality. Finding the thought of a mortgage and matching silverware and furniture that came from somewhere other than the garbage to be quite appealing and yet also quite out of reach. Living a life not quite ready to spend money on anything due to the impermanence of everything. Choosing things to furnish my life based on their moveability-- included carrying cases are still significant factors in the appeal of certain objects.

And I think in some ways this constant state of flex, this preparedness for movement is a good trait, a valuable habit, and yet I find it tiring and long for a place to settle. Wishing for the day when these considerations would leave me alone.