If I could invent an app

it would be something that could translate my thoughts directly into blog posts.

I have thought a great many lovely blog posts in the past 5 months, and have written exactly none of them.

Until today.

moving and the Olympics

It occurred to me, this morning, that this is the longest I have been gone from North Carolina in twenty years.

First of all, it bothers me that I can say anything was twenty years ago because in my mind I am still 27 (which probably explains some of the dumb things I still think I can do, but that's another post).

This thought came to me because later this week, I will be driving back to North Carolina to prepare my house for tenants. The thought went exactly like this: wow, the last time I was away from NC for this long was when I was in Africa.

I spent most of the summer of 1996 in Swaziland in Southern Africa. 20 years later, I have fond and vivid memories of my time there and I would love to be able to return some day. One of my best (and most surreal) memories is of watching the 1996 Summer Olympics in Swaziland. We were 6 time zones ahead of Atlanta, Georgia, where the games were held. Ironically, Atlanta was only 5 hours from my home in NC, and I was half a world away in Africa.

The 1984 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles, and as a 9 year-old child, I was living in Marin County, California. My parents took me to see the Olympic torch as it was run through a nearby town, and I watched Mary Lou Retton and her team earn several medals. This was a HUGE deal since I, too, was a gymnast. My sights were instantly set on Barcelona 1992 when I would be the 16 year-old gymnast achieving the same feats.

Of course, less than a year later I would find myself uprooted from my home state and taken to North Carolina (which I hated for the next 4+ years) where there was no gymnastics facility nearby.

It's funny how life comes full circle, and once again I have been uprooted from a home state that I love, and I'm watching the Olympics in what feels, at times, like a foreign land. Side note that during all 3 of those pivotal games, USA women did very well in gymnastics.

Progress

Wow, it's been two weeks since my last complaint post.

I'm no longer counting days.

I am making progress.

Good things that have happened in the past 2 weeks:

• non-stop Olympics watching
• birthday getaway to Disney World with hubby scheduled for next month
• found a renter for my other house
• got certified for work as a substitute teacher
• I have run or done an exercise video 3x/week

This, despite a week of rain.

Despite a rough start to school for 2/3 of my boys.

Despite being frustrated at lack of money.

Making progress, y'all. One day at a time.

More fight, less flight

I live here now. No matter how bad or hard it seems, I live here now and leaving isn't going to fix my kids' problems (or mine).

More fight, less flight.

Still fighting the good fight for my kids' class schedules. I am probably now known as "that parent" but I will stay and fight until I get the right classes for them. 

I need them to learn that some things are worth fighting for. And by them, I of course also mean me.

22 days down. 654 to go.

Update: we're good on 15/16 total classes. Sometime you have to lose a battle to win the war. We're going to win this!

25 days down. 651 to go.

If I want to

At the bottom of each post, I have a countdown. x days down, z days to go. It started as a pep talk to myself (congrats on enduring 2 weeks in your first-world prison!) as well as a consolation (it's not a life sentence; I don't have to stay here forever.) Even if I hate this place and all the struggles I'm having now, I will be free to move in just under 2 years, if I want to.

If I want to.

Fight or flight

a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.

Flight would be so easy. 

In 14 hours, I could be back at home. A home I am still paying for, paying to cool and have water and gas on, and for the lawn to be mowed. Home where my friends and my kids' friends are. Home where there is no question as to which math course my kids should be signed up for next year, and no trying to figure out which system of brackets are glued to my son's teeth (did you know that there are like 27 different systems of braces, and if you don't find a new orthodontist who works with the same ones that are currently on your child's teeth, said child will have to have said braces removed & replaced at a ridiculous expense to you? That's true!)

But would flight be too easy?

I want, no, need my children to grow and learn, and sometimes that comes through suffering. Because life isn't easy, and I don't want to rob them of this opportunity to experience something new. A chance to prove to themselves that they are strong and capable of doing hard things.

But they did hard things last year. All three of them moved to new schools in a new school system last year. They spent 180 days in that system, making friends, learning what was expected of them, making plans for the future when that future was abruptly brought to a screeching halt. Like a wild frog picked up by a well-meaning child, they were plucked out of the familiar and put down in a new environment. 

-----

I am fighting (for now). School starts a week from tomorrow. I am trying hard to make this work. 

But if it doesn't, school at home doesn't start for three more weeks and we could be back there without missing a thing.


20 days down. 656 to go.

resigned

/riˈzīnd/

adjective 

• having accepted something unpleasant that one cannot do anything about.

verb, past tense

• voluntarily leave a job or other position

My name is Carol. I live in Louisiana now. It is a 2-year sentence.

I have resigned. I am resigned.

I live in Louisiana now.

18 days down. 658 days to go (using May 18, 2018 as the hypothetical last day of school for my kids next year).