Reality

            To say my life has been a little hectic lately would be an understatement.  Some of it is my own doing, but some of it is just life.  I’ve been getting a large dose of reality, and it even applies to this blog.  When I thought about creating a blog, I imagined that I would look forward to writing on it every day and that I would make it a priority.  The reality is, most days I haven’t even thought about writing on my blog.  The days that I have, I’ve been too tired or felt like I didn’t have anything to say.  Before I started my blog, I would get frustrated when bloggers I follow didn’t write for a few days or weeks.  Now I understand how hard it is to be consistent when your life is busy.  (And let’s be honest most of the bloggers I follow have much busier lives than I do!)  There are many other more significant realities that I have been accepting lately.

            I am attending college to become an elementary school teacher.  Teaching was a career I had always considered.  Many of the heroes of books I read when I was younger were teachers.  These characters usually lived in the nineteenth century and taught in a one room school.  When I pictured myself teaching, I pictured a classroom where I had control of what my students learned much like the classrooms my heroes taught in.  I knew that teaching would be a hard, challenging job, but I didn’t imagine that my college courses in education would be challenging.  I thought the challenge would start after college!  The reality is that my program is very challenging.  We have a lot of assignments that we have to complete, and we are also working with actual students who have real needs.  I’ve had to put off school assignments to be prepared to work with the students.  This has been hard for me because giving my best effort in my schoolwork has always been important to me.  There have been days I’ve been so overwhelmed I didn’t even know which assignment to start working on.  With all the stress, you would think I would give up on this career and just choose something easier.  But I’m realizing that life in general takes a lot of hard work, and any other career I might choose would have its ups and downs.  I’m also learning that teaching is totally worth the hard work and the stress.  This is my passion!  The vocation God called me to!  And although it’s overwhelming, the program I am in will thoroughly prepare me to be the best teacher I can be.

            Another reality that I’ve had to digest during college is that, the way it looks right now, I won’t be getting married at the end of college.  When I was younger, I imagined that I would meet the perfect guy, for me, in college; we would marry when we were finished with school; I would teach for a few years; and then we would have three or four biological children, and live happily ever after.  The reality is, if I’ve met my future husband, I don’t know it yet.  And from the looks of it, he won’t be showing up anytime soon, and certainly not in time for us to be married right out of college!  I’m not even sure if that’s what I want anymore.  For the most part, I’m content being single.  Being single certainly gives me freedom to make decisions about where I live and what I do (get my masters or not) when I finish college.  However, this freedom is also kind of scary.  I have to make those decisions for myself.  There is no one who is going to school in a specific city or getting a job somewhere that could influence where I apply for jobs.  I certainly have support from and will receive advice from my parents, but it isn’t quite the same.  While I am content with where I am right now, I can’t help feeling it would be nice to have someone to share life with.

            I’ve also been realizing that when this man comes along, life won’t automatically change and be perfect.  I imagined that it would be easy getting to know a person and letting a person into my life.  My interactions with the friend I mentioned in my last post have taught me that it isn’t always easy or comfortable to have another person care and think about you or to care about another person.  If I get married, things won’t magically change and everything will be alright.  I’ll carry all of who I am, good and bad, into a marriage, and my husband will do the same.  We won’t always like each other, and there will be awkward moments, misunderstandings, and fights.  But I think I also see that the love that grows out of sharing all of your life, even the imperfect moments, is beautiful.

            So let’s just say I’ve done a lot of growing since starting college.  In fact, I’ve done a lot of growing in the past three months!  It’s hard to watch my dreams slip away and turn into reality, but I’m learning many lessons as this happens.  I’m also forming new dreams that seem slightly more realistic.  I’m trying to take life day by day and be thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given, even if my life isn’t exactly as I imagined it would be.