What Are You Going To Do With Your One & Only Life?

This morning has been the kind where God spent so much time talking to me through the t.v. No, I wasn't watching Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer or any other religious program for that matter. It started at midnight when I woke up and started watching Stomp the Yard. I don't really care for the movie, but Columbus Short isn't bad on the eyes. The movie made me think of UCF and what it was like when I became an AKA. It reminded me that being in a sorority meant something to me once. Then, I watcthed HGTV, parts of The Pursuit of Happyness, and last but not least Won't Back Down. By the close of the last movie, I was convinced that I was missing out on some things.

I went to UCF and boldly declared a major in creative writing because writing made me feel alive. I had so many thoughts in my head. Love stories and songs, mysteries, autobiographical novels. I was going to take the world by storm like Zora Neale Hurston or Maya Angelou. I had such huge dreams. But, I graduated with no job and no money. I felt like an utter and complete failure. I wanted to be a writer so bad that I forgot I already was. I forgot the way it felt just to put the words together. I forgot that writing was what was in me whether I got paid to do it or not.

I became a teacher on purpose. I needed a job, I had experience with kids, and I wanted the summer off. I became a teacher so that people would stop asking me what I was supposed to do with a degree in English. No one from my neighborhood was a writer. No one understood what it meant to just want to do what you loved. My dad worked. My mom worked. I dreamed. But, I needed a job.

The first day of my life as a teacher was life changing. I did not fall in love with teaching. I fell in love with Amanda, Mary, and Donnita. My first group of girls helped to ease the transition. I loved them so I taught them about poetry. I shared my love for words with them and in many ways I was pacified. But, I didn't love teaching. I went to work year after year hoping that I would love the process the way I loved the kids. It didn't happen until last year when I decided to go back to school. My last weeks at GMS were bittersweet. I wanted to leave, but after I told my kids, my mind went back to the first day. The day when I thought being a teacher killed my dream of being a writer. I loved the kids and not the job because the job took something from me. Only, it hadn't. Being a teacher gave me 7 years of love, laughter, a few headaches, a patch of grey hair, and in those last days tears. I abandoned my dream because I needed a job. It wasn't my mom's fault, my dad's, or my kids. It was a choice that I made. A choice that I am so glad can be undone. I started writing this because I realized I was meant to teach. I thought that I would write on that epiphany, but right smack in the middle of it was another aha. I am a writer. I am a teacher. I am a cook. I am a baker. I am a minister. I am a counselor. A year from now LSU will add to that I am a social worker (although my last principal informed me that I was a social worker the minute I started teaching). Not one of these exists without the influence of the other and finally I am alright with that. So I say to you, do not abandon your dream whatever it might be. You can be more than one "I am" all at once.

Adayinthelife:-)