Just Do It, It's Good for You!

The photo above is my amaryllis pushing through the hard earth to the sun which, while it is stressful, it is good for the plant and will result in a beautiful blossom. 

I sort of thought, in the back of my mind---not consciously, that when I was an old retired f**t, most of the anxieties of my life would dwindle away into the level of stress that a rain storm on a picnic afternoon might cause.  I had run my finances and felt that I could pay for my late years.  I kind of worried that my days would be gray and boring and sometimes full of guilty waste but certainly less stressful.  Sure, in the distance I could see the challenges of aging and health, but not the Monday through Friday anxieties of raising a family or tending to a job and career that I had previously survived.  There would be no more dreadful Monday mornings of heading out in the gloom of a cold gray day to an office or leaving early in the day to tend to a very sick child as I fought rush hour traffic.

Well, those of you who are my age and sitting in your chair reading this know that I was wrong.  Life goes on and gets in your way and you get in its way if you are still breathing and talking and not hiding in a closet or sitting  on the side of  a mountain far away from civilization being a hermit.

The point I am wandering toward, and I do have a dull one as we climb this switchback, is every decision you make impacts your life in some way and sometimes that way is a little more annoying than you anticipated.

This morning I am on a new schedule.  My student from Peru, a woman in her early 40's (married to a retired Navy intelligence officer with PTSD and in his late 50's) is trying to improve her English and I am the next tail of a rocket that she has grabbed after passing her high school equivalency test through our county program.  She is sweetly pushy and demanding in her plans for this trip and she is eager for the rocket to continue at break neck speed.  Because her temporary jobs in this area require flexibility in my setting classes I must keep moving with a watchful eye on my calendar.  This month the classes are on Mondays at 11:00 A.M.!


I kind of dread this having to head out and having to be on my toes at this time of day.  I am a hard person to please.  I know this is both good for her and certainly good for me to get back into remembering digraphs, graphemes, irregular verbs and whatever.  This is a free wheeling project in that the county has done its job and I have no hard curriculum to follow.  As you may remember from a prior post, I have PILES of books to choose from and am trying to hone my focus and create some structure to this journey.

She wants success yesterday and I have explained to her that there is no magic wand that she or I can wave.  But I keep thinking to myself, am I focusing enough in the right areas.

Anyway, while I feel full of satisfied hope at the end of each class, I do feel a bit of tension as I plan each lesson and as I head out to each class.

I do know that this is probably good for me and I hope it is good for her and I will continue to stick my courage to the sticking place and just do it!