Unpacking is a process on so many levels, not the least of which is the emotional one.  While digging through a large plastic bin liberated from the Mothership’s attic the other night, I came upon a drawing that I did in 8^th grade for a yearbook cover contest.  It’s a pretty good drawing, two hands (presumably modeled on my own) holding up the world.  The world is shrouded in elementary looking clouds with a Picasso like signature along the bottom edge that was my current emblem. 

Repression is a grand coping mechanism and up until this point in my 26^th year I had forgotten that I actually liked to draw and that I was kind of good at it.  It wasn’t about winning the contest or getting my drawing on the yearbook cover, but about getting the validation I so desperately needed at a time when I was often overlooked in the swirl of chaos and emotional disembowelment that nightly went on in my childhood home.  With the drawing I found a rather extensive book report, over fifteen pages on a collection of essays by Erma Bombeck, an ur-Sedaris if you will, heavily exclamation pointed and obsessed with telling the reader about my 8^th grade connection with the “sarcastic” and “dry-witted” author.  At the back of the book report there is a rainbow lettered biography of 8^th grade me where I talk about my horse and my bunnies and my parents’ divorce and my optimism.   The horse, bunnies, and my love for drawing are gone – the divorce and the optimism (albeit a more tempered version) remain.

At what point do we drop things because we do not see the success in them?  4^th grade me loved to draw and drew all kinds of crazy shit – she even kept sketch books around like a real artist.  She had tablets and ink pens and a Bob Ross easel.  4^th grade me wanted to be an artist and a veterinarian and a singer and a writer.  8^th grade me had pared the options down to artist and veterinarian, with artist falling by the wayside shortly thereafter and veterinarian being culled from the list after a particularly unsuccessful term of high school biology.  When does the practical supersede the magical?   When do we stop believing in ourselves?

I am up late trying to write a cover letter for a job that I’m not actually sure I’m particularly well suited for.  While I enjoy being a teacher it seems as if I should be doing something else – something BIGGER.  What could be bigger than leading the future leaders of America?  I had bright and wonderful students who would make great teachers telling me that they might teach someday, but that they weren’t ready to settle.  Sounds like something 10^th grade me would have said.  Now post-grad me is starting to think that it isn’t about settling, but about finding a balance.  In trying to lament my inability to write a cover letter to my beloved better half, I noted that teaching was a good job for me because “every skill I have is completely aligned to this work, both academic skill and personality.”  Or something to that affect.

Damn it’s late.  I need a snack.