Nothing Is Impossible

It has been almost a year. December 9, 2010. About ten more days. Wow. Things are definitely different for me now.

I spend my days at work, with friends or chilling out at home watching tv on the internet. No more homework, no more classes, no more Farmington or school. I'm a college graduate who blew her supervisors and mentors away with her performance during her student teaching. I still haven't found the job of my dreams but I'm looking and I'm getting closer every day.

I no longer worry that the man I love is going to move away from me and go to grad school somewhere so far away that I won't be able to follow. Now I worry that I will be the one moving away. However, I have faith in the one I love and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make this new relationship work.

The world doesn't seem as cut and dry. It isn't about occasionally eating out, going to the movies, and cuddling on the couch. It is much more alive and interesting. There are still days spent watching netflix and not bothering to put on real clothes but now there are also road trips, game nights, parties, weddings, yard work, birthdays, graduations, movies, the mall, the beach, exploring, hiking, live shows, music, festivals, pirates, adventures, and so much more. The list grows every day.

My life is looking more and more like me every day. It is looking more like how I always wanted to live it. Fun, exciting, a little spontaneous, happy and busy. The world seems to have gotten bigger. The possibilities seem endless.

If there is one thing I learned in the past year it's that nothing is impossible.

Who I Am With You And How I Love You

"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."
~Roy Croft~

"I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach."
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning~

Loving Being Wrong

So I've been sick. I woke up Saturday with a headache well, actually it was more like a face ache. And I had hoped it was just that I had slept in too late. But then I woke up yesterday and it was worse. It was too hard to ignore the evidence I had an full blown painful sinus infection. Then I cried because I felt like shit but I knew I couldn't afford to miss work. They only scheduled me for 24 hours this week. So I got up and went to work. While at work I realized what I really wanted more than anything else was for Garrett to come take care of me and to cuddle with me. Normally I don't ask him to come look in on me when I know he is probably busy because I know I would feel bad and selfish. But I felt like I really needed him. So I asked him to come. He said he had to work Monday. So I suggested that he come the night before or after work Monday or that he simply skip work. I thought he would know that it was pretty serious since I pretty much never ask him to skip work for me. The boy said he couldn't because he needed to wash his work clothes for the next day. I told him that was a lame excuse and he agreed with me. I was furious. So I told him I was mad at him. I mean after all the things I do for him. I cook for him, I have taken care packages to him when he hasn't felt well, I have done his dishes for him before, I have baked him things to cheer him up, I have gone to the doctors with him. I have done everything in my power to make him happy. And I don't usually ask him to just come and hold me. And he was denying me something so simple because he had to do laundry.

He apparently was kidding. He had decided to give me the lamest answer possible so that I would know it was simple a stupid excuse so that he could come to Augusta and surprise me. I was flabbergasted. I felt so bad for doubting him. For thinking that he wouldn't want to come take care of me. I guess I am just used to putting in and putting in and not getting everything I need in return. I think part of me expected a no and when I saw it in a text message I didn't take any time at all to question it.

I should have more faith in him. He is so supportive of me. Even though I ask him how he feels about me maybe moving farther away for a teaching job he refuses to give an answers. He doesn't want to color my decision. He wants me to do what is right for me and my career regardless of his feelings. He does little things to make me smile all the time. I should have known he wouldn't hurt me like that. That he would want to be here for me as much as I want to be here for him.

I love that. I love this. I love him.

You Bring Out The Best In Me

I want to run away with you. Find a warm beach somewhere and spend our days lying on the sand under the hot sun, playing in the water, eating food that is bad for us and our nights cuddled in bed together watching Netflix. I want to leave behind this life where we are held down by bills and money. I want to carve out a place in the world for us that is peaceful and beautiful.

I would travel to the ends of the Earth to spend one more minute with you, worry free. Our afternoons where all but the most trivial of cares (such as what's for dinner) have been forgotten are the best times of my life. I could spend eternity wrapped up in your arms. I have never laughed or smiled so much as I do when you are there. You bring out the best in me. The happiest, silliest, lightest, funniest, most beautiful person emerges the minute you walk in the door. But I don't feel like it is an act. Or like this person isn't me. On the contrary I feel more like me when I am with you than at any other time.

How I Feel

I’ve been trying to write you a poem. Something to capture just how I feel about you right now. Something to show myself many years from now so I may forever remember exactly how I feel about you right this moment in time. I can’t. Words aren’t enough. You’ve made this poet speechless. These words, any words just are not good enough. There is no word to describe this. Love no longer covers it. Is there some feeling better than love? Some word to express a feeling more than the strongest most potent feeling on Earth? If there is I don’t know what it is. I just know that is how I feel about you.

Simply Holding Hands

I keep staring at the picture of us holding hands. I don't know why I find it so beautiful. It is simple. Holding hands is such a simple show of affection and love. I can't remember the last time I wanted to hold someone's hand as much as I want to hold yours. It's a nice feeling.

Women Wish

Women wish to be loved not because they are pretty, or good, or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
~Henri Frederic Amiel~

Holding Hands

There is something
So beautiful
In
Interlocking fingers.

I want to
Hold your hand forever,
As the world
Goes rushing by us.

Happiness

Sometimes I am so happy that I feel like I am going to burst. Sometimes I am so happy that when I look back at my past I want to cry. Sometimes I am so happy I want to do a silly little dance. Sometimes I am so happy I want to shout it out from the tallest building in the world. Sometimes I am so happy I think I must be dreaming and I pinch myself to make sure I am still awake.

I was in Boston yesterday. BOSTON! I spent the day in your car and the night in your arms. I woke up this morning still in slight disbelief that this could be real, that this could be my life. I have always wanted to travel, just to see things. And now I'm doing it. Because of you I'm doing it. I have found what I was missing before, a fellow comrade, a traveler, an adventurer, a friend, a kindred spirit.

I was happy with my life when I met you. It was starting to look more like how I had always hoped it would. But I find that all of my happiest moments are with you. So please forgive me when I have a hard time letting go. I never want it to end. I'm still looking for way to hold onto it for a little bit longer. And every time I have to let go again it's a little bit harder.

I'm not saying I never want us to be a part. That would be crazy. I want everything for you. I want you to have a job you love, friends you enjoy seeing and somewhere you can lay your head that isn't stressful. I want you to still go to guys night and mow your mom's lawn and go to anime conventions and concerts. I just wish that when we parted it would be brief and because we wanted to. I wish that we didn't have to plan when we would see each other next or figure things out.

Until then I will take what I have. Pure happiness that you're in my life at all. And a tenacious need to see you as often as possible. I love you.

Dream Unit

Dear Sir,

At my interview you asked me what I would teach if money were no object, if I could teach anything in the world. Realize now that my answer was lame. Yes, I would certainly love to teach the Hunger Games but now I don’t think I was thinking big enough. If I could sir I would teach a unit on Romantic poets. The unit would have students reading Wordsworth, Clare, and Shelley while traveling the English countryside. We would stop at all of these poets’ favorite outdoor haunts and while at each spot the students would be required to write a journal entry recording their thoughts and feelings. At the end of the trip they would be required to submit their journals and 5 poems, each poem written on a different stop on the trip. The trip would give the students a chance to see what it is these poets were feeling when they wrote their poetry. It would open them up to the changing landscape and the never ending struggle by conservationists to save it as well as the life of the everyday person.

Once we returned to school I would follow this unit with a unit over American transcendentalism. This would show them how this movement grew out of the English Romantic poetry but also the many differences. We would read Emerson, Thoreau, and the more modern transcendentalist, Annie Dillard. If I had the money still this unit would be followed by a trip to Waldo Pond, Mount Katahdin, and Tinker Creek so that students could compare this countryside to the English one. Perhaps they would see that the differences between transcendentalism and the romantics have to do with the differences in landscapes.

Sometimes to grasp what we see on paper we need to see what inspired it for ourselves.

Sincerely,
Ms. Danielle Terrill

Life Update

I had 136 posts in this blog in 2010. So far in 2011 I have had 17. And the year is halfway over. I have obviously been busy. I didn't post a single thing in May. I graduated from college and didn't post one word about it. Maybe it is time for a short update.

Got dumped, had a very shitty time with it, started student teaching, started dating around, met a new boy, fell in love, graduated from college, moved into a one bedroom apartment near my brother in August, been busy applying for teaching jobs. You could probably figure most of this out from my random postings and because most of the people who read this know exactly what is going on in my life. I am actually not sure if anyone reads this. I used to know that at least two people were reading every post. Now I don't think anyone is. Maybe that is good. I mostly write here for myself. I was keeping a blog while I was student teaching. That was more for others to read as well as to help me reflect. I may continue to write in that blog if I get a job. I think it is important for teachers to reflect on their teaching.

Anyway, I have been looking for a job. I applied to 6 places so far. 2 have now gotten back to me. They didn't want to interview me. Part of me wonders if there wasn't something I could have done better in order to get the interviews. Part of me thinks that they just weren't good fits. Part of me thinks it was just because I haven't got any teaching experience yet. Part of me thinks I may never get a job. I have come so far. It would suck to fail now. What did I go to school for if not to teach? What have I been doing the past 4 years except working my ass of so that I could afford to go to school? It is frustrating to apply. It is hard. There is a lot that goes into each little packet that I send out. They could at least bring me in for an interview.

All I can really do is continue applying to schools and hope that one of them wants to hire me. There will be new openings as the summer progresses and maybe some of the people in the interviews won't pan out and I will get called after all. You never know. The important thing is that I am doing all I can do to try and get a job.

Until then I am working at Staples, seeing my family and friends whenever I can, reading a lot of books and visiting with my new boyfriend who ironically happens to be named Garrett. Everything and nothing changes in life. Garrett is nothing like Garret. Except their names sound alike. I have never met a guy who cares more about me than anything else. He cares about people in general more than anything else. His mom, his brother, his friends, me, the residents at the place he works at. If his heart got any bigger there wouldn't be room enough for it in his chest.

And he is sweet. And romantic. He leaves me youtube videos of songs he thinks I'll like on my Facebook wall. He tells me I'm beautiful. He buys me Reeses when I'm having a bad day. He remembers things I tell him. Like my favorite candy, my favorite smell, my favorite flower, my birthday, my favorite movie, my friends' names. He impresses every one he meets. He impresses me. He makes me laugh. He makes faces with me, plays with me, makes noises with me, speaks in funny voices with me. He never makes me feel small, or stupid. He likes when I talk about teaching, which while I was student teaching I did a lot. He likes that I am passionate about something and spends his time listening, not ridiculing my methods. He likes that I go out of my way for my friends. He likes that I would go out of my way for him if he ever needed me to.

I love the way he looks at me. Like I'm something special. It isn't a half bemused, half curious look. Its that small gentle smile that says, "I love you," "I'm so happy you're here," and "Wow. How did I get so lucky?"

I guess you could say that overall, life is different. Drastically different. Some of it is still hard, like the job hunt. But many parts are looking up again. And I'm hopeful.

Three Little Unspoken Words

Blue eyes stare into brown ones,
Gentle smiles break over faces,
The music starts, the screen cuts to black.

Behind closed doors
A hand caresses an ear through long hair.
And they’re dancing among the stars.

Nothing is said,
Nothing needs to be said.

Three little words
hang heavy in the air.

It’s on their lips,
in their eyes,
twinkling in her hair.

Eyes meet
And at that moment
She knows
And he knows.

Teaching Quotes

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. ~Gail Godwin

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called "truth." ~Dan Rather

=)

"WHAT EACH KISS MEANS"
- Kiss on the Forehead: We're cute together .
- Kiss on the Cheek: We're friends.
- Kiss on the Hand: I adore you.
- Kiss on the Neck: I want you, now.
- Kiss on the Shoulder: Your perfect.
- Kiss on the Lips: I LOVE YOU...
____________________________________________________
WHAT EACH GESTURE MEANS:
- Holding Hands: We definitely like each other.
- Holding you tight pressed against each other: I want you.
- Looking into each other's Eyes: I like you, for who you are.
- Playing with Hair: Let's fool around.
- Arms around the Waist: I like you too much to let go.
- Laughing while Kissing: I am completely comfortable with you.
____________________________________________________

ADVICE:
- If you were thinking about someone while reading this, you're definitely
in Love.
____________________________________________________

http://www.boardofwisdom.com/

What I Needed

I have been trying to keep teaching away from this blog. However, I realized the title of this blog is still "Of Love, Life, Writing and Everything in Between." Whether I like it or not, teaching is all of the above. It is currently the thing I love the most about my life. It currently is my life. I live, sleep and breathe it every day. Even when I am not in the classroom I am thinking about it or talking about it. I am writing about it every day on my other blog and in reflections I am doing for my field supervisor. I am sure it is in all of my conversations, my facebook statuses and every other aspect of my life. When something permeates your being so completely it is hard to keep it out of anything. Teaching has been everything I hoped for and more. It has made me happy again. It is truly the most fun thing I have ever done. I am more exhausted than ever, I am more uncertain about everything I am doing every day and yet I am sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I am so happy that I didn't let things going on in my love life derail me. I am so glad that I didn't take time to back away from school like I had thought about doing. This is what I needed.

Single on Valentine's Day

So this is the first time that I will be single on Valentine's Day in a very long time. At first this fact was very depressing. But I have come up with some plans to cheer myself up. First, I made my mentor teacher a cake as Valentine's Day is her birthday. I am letting it cool now before I frost it. It is Red Velvet and it is going to have cream cheese frosting. Yum. It will be a great way to surprise her. Next, I made plans to go out to eat in Augusta with Mel and Ernie. The three of us are going to get dressed up and have a wonderful time not caring about Valentine's Day. Then last but not least I decided to not focus on what I am not getting and to focus on what others are not getting. I have these three guy friends at Staples who I know are probably not getting anything for Valentine's Day. The three of us have kind of been having a crappy time in the love department of our lives. I decided to surprise the with a small gift from me. I bought them each a ten dollar gift card to subway, then I wrote them a note from me thanking them for being such awesome friends. I put them in envelopes with their names on them. I am going to leave them for them at Staples tomorrow. The three of them are really good guys and they deserve to be treated better than they have been. I hope that this shows them that at least one girl out there cares. I know I will probably not get anything in return but I don't want anything. I know how crappy it feels to watch all the couples around you celebrate Valentine's Day. I just want to make it a little bit better for them. Besides, who ever said the day had to be just for lovers? Why can't it also be for great friends?

One Shot

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?

~Lose Yourself by Eminem~

I have one shot alright. One shot to get through college. One shot to get my teaching degree. One shot to get as far from what I know and do what I want to do. Sometimes my dreams seem so crazy. I mean who would have ever thought that a poor girl from Orland would get into college. Who would have thought that she would be succeeding? Who would have thought she would be about to go into her student teaching? I am so close to having my dreams unfold that I can taste them. And sometimes I want it so bad that it hurts. I have been given this great opportunity to learn everything I need to in order to be a great teacher, to be better than any one would have ever imagined me to be. I can be something great. I can be a teacher and a writer. I can travel the world. I can be anything I want to be. I can feel myself getting closer and closer everyday. But every step is difficult. I have to remind myself every day that failure just isn't an option. Its succeed or do what my parents did. Work a job I hate so that I can eat.

Soul Mates

"A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life."

~From Eat, Pray, Love

Taking Back My Life

I used to worry all the time that someday I would wake up and realize that you were a dream, that you weren't real. You seemed too good to be true to me. And the life we talked about having seemed like a fairy tale. Now it is here. The nightmare has come real. You have left me and now I am all alone. I have to say though, it isn't a nightmare anymore.

I realized something. You will never find another girl like me. There will never be another girl who puts up with your idiosyncrasies like I did. And good luck finding one who is willing to not french kiss. There are a million things out there that I have always wanted to do and I have been worried that I wouldn't have time to do them. I now have all the time in the world. It might be years before I find someone else I am serious about. And honestly I am fine with that. I don't need someone else getting in the way of what I want to do.

I want to do things I will regret. I want to go out with my friends and have a good time. I want to flirt with random guys and feel like I am the sexiest girl alive. I want to travel. I want to see the world. I want to go to New York. I want to get back to acting and see how far it takes me. I want to be an amazing teacher who loves her students and is absolutely crazy about her job. I want to live somewhere other than Maine for a while. I want to have fun. I want to say and do whatever I want, when I want and as often as I want.

I have been holding back. You once told me that I am a ticking time bomb. I seem to have remembered exactly how that feels. And I like it.

Look out world, here I come.

Day # 21 Someone I Judged By Their First Impression

Dear Carmon,

So we're not friends. And we never have been friends. However, I need to admit something to you. In high school when I first met you and saw the people you hung out with I judged you. I judged wrong. Later on in high school I had a creative writing class with you and that was when I realized it. You weren't an air head like the people you hung out with. And you weren't like he preps whose every thought was about when the next party would be. You were different. You were deeper than that. And funny. And nice. And friendly and kind. Maybe we aren't friends, but that isn't because of how I judged you. Its more because I avoided your friends and that meant avoiding you unless you were alone. But I have no problem with you. I want you to know that you are an aquaintance that when I see I don't cross the road to avoid. I don't mind stopping to chit chat with you. And I certainly wouldn't mind hanging out some time. I want you to know that I think you're alright.

Sincerely,

Dani