I’m turning the dumping ground that is “my” room into a sitting room that will house my romance novels, education library, and electronics. Anything I don’t recognize or remember purchasing, I will look at as an exciting find rather than a distressing sign of ECT-induced damage (I can’t consider myself a victim of the ECT – it was a life-saving decision and I am getting some memories back and am not losing new memories… but that’s a whole other discussion). So what do I need to do sort through my past and reclaim My Room?

STAGE 1: Sorta Majora
I will go through everything that is all over the floor and my desk and put them in distinct areas.

1. Sewing and Knitting Materials – on top of the table, which against the wall and directly in front of the entrance
2. Clothing - back corner facing the door, behind the table, on top of an unexplored box that I believe holds some clothing.
3. Job-Acquisition Materials - in the top-most clear drawer(s), which is in front of the window, between the chair and the bookcase, diagonal from the door
4. Student work – in the bottom most clear drawer(s)
5. Random papers - in the cardboard perpendicular-sorting boxes on top of the drawers
6. Toys, Teaching Manipulatives, and Electronics - into a clear bin outside the room

STAGE 2: Sortae Minora
Once the mess is generally sorted into groups, I can start to find places for items.  The table can be removed from the room and put into the hallway (folded) or look like a desk in the guest room until we can move it downstairs so it can be a major part of the rec room in the basement.

1. Sewing and Knitting Materials all go into the bins that are in the basement, if there’s room, or into new bins (which are on sale at the supermarket or all over Target).
2. Clothing must be sorted into smaller groups and put away. If it fits and can be worn now, I need to find a place for it in the drawers or my closet. If it is for a special occasion, I can hang it in the closet in Peter’s room. If it is a size or two off, I will put it in storage with similar clothing. If it is unlikely I will ever wear it (like the tissue-paper-thin Old Navy tees), I will put it in a box which will go in the basement and will donate it to Goodwill along with other items that I don’t think I will wear again. 
3. Job-Acquisition Materials can be filed into the file-storage box I got at the supermarket today. Resumes of various ages, recommendations, college/university transcripts, copies of certifications, and even copies of old applications… all of it will go in that file box.
4. Student work will go in a second file box. I will have to be picky and I will have to be willing to throw things out.
5. Random papers will need to be sorted through. If they are craft-related, they’ll go with that stuff. If they instruct me in electronics, they will go in a file folder and be stored with electronics. If they are job-related, I will put them in a file-folder or a file-storage-bin. If they are records of purchases that are tax-related, I will put them downstairs with the tax prep stuff.
6. Toys, Manipulatives, and Electronics will be sorted. Electronics and small toys will go into the colorful set of drawers I have sitting in the kitchen and, if necessary, some cute colorful bins from Target. The clear drawers (which had held the various papers I’d just removed) will go downstairs into the rec room. Manipulatives that are in bins can be stacked downstairs by the drawers or go into the clear drawers. Our family games will also go downstairs into the rec room or living room (depending on Peter’s preferences), along with the games that we keep in Peter’s room.

STAGE 3: Preliminary Work-Space Set-Up

1. Education-related books will be rearranged to display ALL my math and education-reference books as well as any books that I’d make copies from. I will need another bookcase or some special bins in order to store it all. Curriculum, textbooks, and worksheets will have to go downstairs to the rec room along with most of the manipulatives.
2. Desk drawers and organization products will be completely reorganized, my set of little colored drawers will come up to help with organizing CDs, etc. so that the desk top is clear. I will bring my large laptop up and keep it there.

Stage 4: Comfort and Decor Set-up
Part of reclaiming the room is making it a haven to retreat to. This will be the funnest stage and will take the longest.

1. The armchair and ottoman will be clear of everything, except maybe a comfy throw or extra pillow, and ready to be sat in.
2. Novel bookcases will move from the guest room into my room, along the wall that once held the clothing-box and table, and I may add more high shelving so I can display all my snow globes and coaches. This will help make the guest room project easier.
3. Artwork will be displayed. Possibly the watercolor of Venice my parents gave me (they got it on their honeymoon, which I had stowed-away on as a fetus), if Peter doesn’t like it. Otherwise, my funny-bunny poster and/or a set of round mirrors of varying sizes that is currently selling for under $20 at Target.
4. Purses may be displayed vertically along one wall on special hooks, if I can find room and manage it, at least for my favorites. 

Steps 5+: Items From Elsewhere
I have stuff from my previous jobs that are in the kitchen and my car. I also will move the printer/fax/scanner down to the basement and bring the other electronics (which are currently in the living room) upstairs.

It sounds exhausting, but it’s doable with time and help with the heavy lifting. The first step will be hard, but if I don’t try to do any of Step 2 during that step, I’ll get through it in a day. The second step will take a while, but it is essential to making the room and my stuff useable and managable for the long run. I’m determined not to rush to Step 4 until I at least get through Steps 1 and 2, and I can think about it a little, but Steps 5+ will be so much easier if I do steps 2 and 3 thoroughly without jumping ahead.

UPDATE 2/3/10 @ 7:40pm: It looks like I’m going to have to leave Step 1 as it remains after the little sorting I did today and move to Step 2. If I get Part 1 (the craft supplies) and Part 2 (clothing) done tomorrow, I can clear off the table, move the clothing tub partially blocking the doorway, and remove the table from the room, so I have more room to work.

On Friday, I visited the school I’m currently on leave from, met with the principal, visited the math department, and met my new long-term-sub.

My principal is very understanding but told me that he felt he had to put me on the “First Year’s I Don’t Intend to Keep” list, due to my significant absences. However, he will keep me on this year as long as the sick leave bank pays for my being out (so I need to be reapproved every 20 school days, for up to 100) and  if I do return and perform exceptionally well, that may change. I was very happy he was that honest. Regardless, he also does not anticipate a part-time position being available next year, so I will probably be looking for another position internally and externally for next school year.

The principal also gave me “my” second semester schedule, which includes only 1 co-taught class and added a section of Personal Finance (which is extremely well planned-out, so I just have to make copies and deliver the material). Seeing my classroom, seeing coworkers, and meeting my newest long-term sub (the last sub got a full-time full-benefits position elsewhere so he started with the semester this past week). Since the chemistry teacher’s  back from maternity-leave, her sub was given to my classes and they seem to be in good hands.

The principal and my department head were both extremely clear about the one essential thing that decides my date of return, be it March 1st (half-way through 3rd quarter, with Spring Break at the end of the month as a nice breather) or mid-April (the start of 4th quarter): I must be able to have 100% attendance. Any short-cuts that can minimize my stress are okay, but I must grade things on-time, maintain communication with parents, follow-through, and have a strong classroom presence.

That gave me a lot to think about. Afterwards, rather than going to the gym as planned, I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target and shopped for 4 hours. Then I finished cleaning the Laundry Room floor free of sticky detergent and carried in and down a 6-foot folding table, garbage can, and 3 laundry bins, successfully creating a useable and comfortable laundry center. Saturday, I was FAR less achy than expected.

After having slept 12 hours last night, I tested my auditory strength. In other words, I turned on the dishwasher and hung out in the living room. Unfortunately, despite all the sleep I had had and all the progress I had otherwise made, I still went into auditory overload in 20 minutes and went upstairs and turned on my iPod and lay in bed. Four hours later, I woke up to Peter calling to say he’d be home from his Magic prerelease event shortly. I still have a headache and am feeling like my ears hurt. After that, I’m losing hope that I can have the tools I need to return to teaching 30 social teenagers even by April.

Before I return, I’ll have to:

1. work on CBT to minimize auditory overloading (in addition to my other CBT goals),
2. put myself in positions in which I’ll have to cope with uncomfortable, changing sounds for long periods of time, and
3. spend a week or two transitioning in as a last-chance test.

I miss teaching so much it hurts, like an ulceration of my soul. I’m not even tutoring right now, which I did while I was working on curriculum in a cubicle last school year. I’m back to being a student in my dreams, now, and am having nightmares almost every time I sleep about can’t-remember-what-classes-I-have-when and behind-on-my-work. 

So I’m going to email my psychologist (and myself) my CBT goals for the next month-plus so I can return to teaching, which are:

• Be in touch with my body’s aches and pains
• Find a way to avoid channeling frustration/stress/anger into my body
• Purposefully tune out body pain and not transmit it into emotions
• Believe that, most of the time, my “Good Enough” is spectacular and perfection is to be avoided
• Minimize auditory overloading or desensitize myself in some way

I will also apply to internal openings, and get my resume together for external openings. The Sick-Leave-Bank application for the month of February is in the mail. In addition, I’m going to go to the gym at least 4 days this week.

This week, I’m also going to work on my room to the point that the floor can be walked on, the table can be removed, and the desk is clear. I will also be organizing/clearing the vanity in the master bathroom.

And, yes, I’ll still have time to rheuminate over how much I miss being an educator. I always do.

After discussing the “Chuck” season 3 premiere, I’ve come to realize that my vision of my place in the world is drastically different from my mother’s. She lives in a fall-in-love-and-live-happily-ever-after world, where very little is of any importance outside family. I, as you read in the previous post, believe that God put us each on this Earth to make life just a little bit better. How we each interpret that and achieve it differs, but I believe that if the opportunity comes to make the lives of millions better, our personal desires get put on hold for the common good.

In high school, we joked about going to college for our MRS degrees. Just to put this in context, it was a girls’ school in Greenwich, CT. The joke was that, in many minds, regardless of how brilliant we each were, the point of the making-the-grade and getting-into-college warfare was to get into the best possible school so we could meet the highest caliber man with whom to fall in love. A degree and career of our own was secondary to this and really only a fall-back position for economy or, possibly, meeting a man in the workplace if you don’t snag one in college.

This sounds like something from the 50s or from the odd world that is Greenwich, CT. However, my grandmother taught my mother and myself that women were put on Earth to serve men. We must never make their lives uncomfortable, but should endeavor to meet their every need. She also believed that a woman’s status hinged on what man she was connected to: tall, dark, handsome, and well-connected. My mother rebelled, in a way; she chose a man with a mind superior to that of his peers, despite the fact that he was short, poorly-dressed, had 2 children, and less than gorgeous. However, she did conform to ideal expectations because she fell in love with and married a prime specimen (just not what her mother had considered prime) and has devoted herself to house and home, going on what I jokingly call “extended maternity leave” since giving birth to me over 29 years ago.

When I chose my college, I did it for the academic and social aspects that appealed to me, the ability of an individual to be seen by their professors and to do great things on campus, and because it just felt right. It wasn’t the best school I got into, but it was the best school for me. I didn’t go to college to get my MRS degree, but I did see men as potential spouses, and happily-ever-after (as any Disney Princess will tell you) is just a heartfelt sigh away. I met Peter and he was tall and handsome and perfect for me. He was hot and a sweetheart and remembered my name the day after we met. He was thoughtful and caring and honest. He was brilliant enough in his own right not to be intimidated or threatened by my own natural genius. He also loved to learn. He didn’t love school, but he loved learning. So, like my mother, I fell in love with a man’s brain, and his hot body was just a nice extra. His parents belong to a country club and have connections. However, they live modestly (with plenty of very fun extras, like international travel) and they live in Buffalo. Peter’s family, and Peter himself, aren’t NY or LA jet-setters, and they aren’t New England’s Old Money. But after going to high school in Greenwich, CT, despite my mother’s heartfelt dreams, I knew that that was not a world I wanted to be in. I wanted to be part of a family of down-to-Earth, intelligent, fun, genuine people.

My mother once warned me that my nebulous-future-husband will either have to make $200,000/yr or we’d have to make that much together, in order to live comfortably. We don’t even make $100k combined, but that hasn’t cramped our style.

The thing is, I love my husband so very much that he is a living, breathing part of me. We’ve been together for over a decade. However, I still feel the need to “save the world.” If, before we married, I was given the option of cutting all ties and running away with him or a way to make the world a better place that only I could do, well… I guess everyone has their own fairy tale.

Luckily (very, very, very luckily), I have the luxury of being able to love and be loved, and to eventually raise my own family, while still working to save my little piece of the world, even if it’s just one person at a time.

Welcome to my little blog. This is my first post, which I’ve put off writing for quite some time. But today, I really need to get some stuff out there.

I’m home sick, for the fourth day in a row, my 16th absence this year. Why? Not H1N1. Fibromyalgia pain. It’s not that the pain is so bad I can’t function, it’s that the pain is so bad that I can’t be patient or watch my tongue as much as is needed of a math/special ed teacher. I worry that I’ll soon be asked to resign. The frustration and loneliness of being home all day increases my pain. At least it’s Friday, so I don’t have to worry about staying on schedule, sleep-wise.

The thing is, I didn’t schedule my life this way. By now, we were supposed to be settled into our jobs and home, with 2 kids and discussing having a 3rd. After grad school, I got married. During my 2nd year of teaching, we decided to try to get pregnant. It didn’t work out, and neither did my job. That’s when my life began to derail. I figured we’d wait a year, while we moved to Maryland from Western NY so I could be the head of the math dept at a school for underprivileged, college-bound students in grades 5-12 with language-based learning disabilities. However, after 6 months, I was diagnosed with fibromyalia, which steadily got worse until I could no longer teach and, eventually, no longer function on a day-to-day basis. All of this moving around and the recession ate our savings and half my nest-egg.

So now, I probably won’t have a job by the new year and my husband wants to move closer to family and friends. I want to live elsewhere as well, but moving would be difficult… cleaning up and selling our home, paying for movers, getting new jobs and a new place to live… Oh, yeah, and we have to buy christmas presents for everyone and pay for travel.

I’m not going to worry about my neurologist appointment on Sunday – he’ll either repeat I have fibromyalgia and radiculopathy (weird, unbalanced, under- and over-reactive nerves in my arms and legs) or, based on the MRI results of my brain and neck, he’ll say I have something else that we can’t do much about.

But I’m going to cocoon myself in a stress-free environment by reading and sleeping and watching TV. When my husband comes home, maybe we’ll go to dinner. I hope we’ll see a movie and do something fun tomorrow.