You never know....

Written 18 August 2012

Just when I think I’ve just come through the most bizarre time of my life, I seem to be faced with even more insane circumstances. Without going into too much detail, I have to say I’ve been confronted with one hectic scenario after the other, as life hurls a volley of shots at me that nothing could’ve prepared me for.

Today somebody put it into a universal, metaphysical context, saying that 2012 was in fact the end of an era, and that with such a time comes immense change. Many people I know have been saying that 2012 has also been a terrible year for them, so it seems there’s indeed truth to the universality of the unsettled nature of things.

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It’s a Saturday and I’m sitting in my car, outside my children’s school, while they do whatever they’ve come to do. Decided it was a waste of time and petrol to drive home, as they’d just be busy for an hour. On the way home, I have to drop one of them somewhere. Once home, I’ll teach two guitar lessons, then take the other one somewhere else and pick up the first one. I’d planned to use the sunny weather today to do much-needed laundry, after all the icy, stormy weather, but it was not to be. Let’s just say “external factors” mitigated against me, and I couldn’t use my yard. No rain forecast for tomorrow, so I’ll get up tomorrow with the same plan and hope for a more friendly outcome.

In too many areas of my life, I feel the walls closing in on me, as I struggle to be who I am and to live my truth. In two weeks’ time, if all goes well, I’ll earn my first salary in five months, which will take care of one huge, lingering, festering problem. The job I’m in is a temporary one, and one to which I’m committed to giving my best, despite immense challenges.

I really do look forward to 2013, as I anticipate it being the complete opposite of 2012, with loads of opportunities and things that work out right, without all the difficulties this year’s had.

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Listening to one of Amy Winehouse’s albums. She had an old soul, that one, organically connected to music from an era long gone. Everytime I remember that she’s dead, I feel sad. I feel sad that the world won’t have the gift of her voice on any new albums or in live shows. But most of all, I feel sad because I’ve heard her lyrics and seen some documentary footage of her life, and I think she was a woman, like so many others, who made choices that brought her immense pain. Some of those choices resulted in her death at age 27. So sad and so avoidable.

A beautiful friend gave me an interesting book today: “How To Publish Your Own e-Book”. It was a strange feeling, because my life’s changed completely since I started this teaching post, and I have so much school-related reading to do, that I can’t read anything else for a while. Also, because my days are so full and tiring, I don’t really have much time for my artistic life. You can imagine how frustrating that is, especially as I was hoping to put the finishing touches to my recording by the end of August. That’s definitely not going to happen, as I’m taking a lot of strain in this job, and I’m constantly hoarse.

I woke up this morning, thinking of different ways to survive the next few months. I find myself teaching in an environment that requires me to be a very different person to who I am, and the biggest challenge I’m faced with is finding creative ways to lessen the gap between the two extremes. I love teaching, and I particularly love teaching English - especially literature - but I find myself in the strangest of situations, teaching children who seem to resist being taught! It’s the craziest thing ever! You can waste a third to half of every period dealing with unruly behaviour that prevents you from teaching what you’ve come prepared to teach. Absolutely amazing!

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a few things that will get me through this contract: the fact that I now have a job, after four months of being unemployed, the fact that it’s actually a well-run school with good teachers and well-thought-out systems, the fact that earning a salary enables me to take better care of my children and, lastly, the possibility that I could make a difference to the life of even one of the children I teach, and, in so doing, set him/her on a journey towards authenticity and fulfillment.

You never know…..