Permission to Fail

Life is a mess.

Or, rather, life is messy.

I'm hoping to get together soon with my moon howlin' buddies, talk about life's messes.

I'm not saying I'm a mess. Just messy.

I start back to work tomorrow. It is exciting.

What a great job I have. It is a lot of work. Demanding work. Important work.

Teachers get a couple of months to recharge their pedagogical batteries, continue their education, and simply catch their breaths.

I am ready!

I teach an interesting age, middle school. That is 6th, 7th, & 8th grades. Aside from the first three years of life, I think these three years cover the greatest changes of their lives.

Now I strongly believe in teaching my subject, delivering what I am charged to bring to them. But I think there is a more important thing for them to learn. They need to learn the skills that will bring them success in high school.

They need to learn to take responsibility for their learning... homework, study skills, meeting due dates, simply doing the work of a student.

If there is ever a time for a student to trip, to make mistakes and learn from them, it is middle school. No prospective employer will ask about their 6th grade marks, no college transcript will reveal their GPA from 8th grade.

I think this is true of life in general.

I would love to be successful at all I do. To be the perfect father, to shrug off my divorce easily, to be an always obedient follower of my faith.

13.7 billion years. That's how long this universe has been around. It's a long time. I whole heartedly believe my "future" will be longer than that. I'm comfortable with that idea.

God doesn't expect perfection. He knows me, knows us, better than that

It's OK to think of life as process.

My Boys

Wanted kids... like just about everyone else.  Basic instinct... procreate... replicate.

Wasn’t in the cards.  I guess.

When it was all too clear we weren’t having kids of our own...

First there was Willy.  Pretty exciting, having a newborn in the house.  Scary.  Fragile. 

At any rate... we lost him and a year and a half later adopted two boys from Haiti.

I never admitted, to my wife, to friends, to anyone, my reservations about adoption.

A couple of people had the courage to say what many, including myself, were thinking... can adopting fulfill that inner need for children?

I told everyone how wonderful it was having these two boys.

And it was.

OK... I had secret doubts.  My children didn’t look like me.  They’re black, I’m not.  I love science, literature, art... they... well... they aren’t equipped to... appreciate such things as much as me.

The other night I was watching a movie with my son Isaac (and a friend and her kids).  The climax of the movie came... the music swelled... the schmaltz swelled... Isaac started making his goofy happy noises, practically vibrating and jiggling, worked up at the emotional high of a happy ending.

I understand that.  Even though the ending was predictable, I felt it too.

I’m the sentimental sort.  I love art and literature and happy endings.

Watching Isaac, gleeful over the ending of that movie, I saw a bit of myself in him.

Isaac doesn’t carry any genes from me.  He can’t read the sort of things I like.  He can’t... well... doesn’t matter.  There are many differences between he and me.  And between my other son, Jeremiah, and me.

Through all those years I so loved those boys.  Sure, sometimes I wished I had a biological child... But when I think over all those years...  well... I like, Isaac does... like making goofy happy noises, vibrating and jiggling, worked up with an emotional high of a very happy ending.

Yeah... things got screwed up.  My wife, frustrated over her role in this family, frustrated over a lack of biological children, frustrated over the... the... well, the things our children will never achieve... 

But... though things got screwed up... it was all wonderful.  Full of wonder.

These are my children.

These are my boys and I see parts of myself in them.  In their hearts, in their actions.

These are my children, and I am a proud, very proud, father . 

Quick Update

Been too long since I wrote here...

I think partly it's because I've been settling back into the non-routine of the teacher during summer vacation, and partly because I wasn't sure what I should and should not post.

That isn't to say that I haven't been writing.  I wrote several pieces.  I wrote something poking fun at a friend of mine, but he has done me a couple of good turns of late and I felt it ungrateful to have a laugh at his expense (though in the end that piece held him up in a good light, honest).

It was good to be back home from my trip to the other side of the world.  That trip gave me much to think about.  I brought back many stories and have shared most of them with family, friends, and even a few on these digital pages.

I could write more of that now, but I think I'll give it a rest.

I've been spending time with my sons.  They are both doing well, settling into more independence than I expected of them.  Ambiguous feelings there...

One other reason I haven't written is because I am unsure how to write of the larger changes in my life... matters of heart.

I'm a very great distance from where I was a year ago.  I have traveled farther than the 7500 miles to Bangkok, or the temporal distance of once around Sol.

Brenda is far from my heart now.  I am not just relieved of being on a new road, a direction other than hers, but I am so much happier than I would have believed.

Over the past year I began a little dating... I tried dating a bit to just get out of myself, out of my funk, meet new people, smile a bit.

I've found someone in particular who makes me smile quite a bit.  And there's the awkward part to writing lately.  There is a huge part of this that isn't mine to share.  Though there isn't much there in terms of what is a secret, not known by friends and neighbors, it still isn't wholly mine, and therefore not something I feel comfortable in freely sharing.

But... I am free this much... she makes me happy.

OK... that's all I wanted to say there... for those of you who have been following this sentimental soul's little journey of heart break... there's been quite a bit of healing.

My gardens have grown wildly.... I have my vegetable garden.  The corn and pumpk

in have outstripped the weeds, but not by much.  The bees buzz happily between the purpled artichokes,well past being edible.  The strawberries are sweet and too plentiful for Isaac and me to eat by ourselves.  The other garden, what I call my metaphor garden, is a wild combination of flowers, shrubs, and even vegetables.  There is a sunflower there that rises over ten feet from the ground.  A mole is circumnavigating it with his tunnels, and so I am waging another small war between the clever little beasts.

I've been doing a lot of reading in scripture, placing my summer's experiences in the context of my recent travels (of asia and my heart) and though I have difficulty articulating what that means, there has been growth there.

I've made some new friends as well.  People of kind hearts and similar faith.

I've tried a lot of new things this past summer... and it's been, on the whole, very good.

The largest change has been my smile.  It is larger and more frequent than it has been in a long time.

I return to work soon.  I am so looking forward to it!  I will be teaching a class of language arts this year.  It has been five years since I taught that subject.  I know this year will be the best year I have had in a long time.  I am already biting off a lot of new responsibilities so it will be a busy year... robotics, local access TV, study skills training, probably teach a class at church, and I'm ushering back an annual event that has been missed for half a decade, "Untalent Night" (a conglomeration of silly skits, awful musical performances, and pretty much anything that might illicit more groans than applause.

So... a quick update on the strange journey of the curious servant.

Life is good.

My Metaphor Garden