What's your comfort level?

In a relationship? Are you a touchy-feely person, who needs someone around all the time? Are you one who sincerely appreciates space and respects the other person's life choices? Are you a control freak or afraid of intimacy?

I had a conversation with a friend, who asked me what types of relationships I'd been in previously. What I discovered was that distance has been a staple with me and it's the way I prefer my relationships. She thought I was wierd for not desiring that constant touch or interaction. I've never really had that, even when I was married. We spent more time living seperately than together. I have never lived with a man, although one lived with me briefly. Living with a man always meant that he didn't want to marry me, so I refused. It also allowed me my autonomy, my own space. I truly didn't want to share my house/myself with a man, even with being married. I'm not saying I didn't love him or buy his dreams. I just couldn't live with him.

This probably stems fm the fact that my mother never married and lived with my grandmother, until she died. I have siblings, but I lived as an only child. And, yes, I had roommates in college. We lived seperate lives. I was never in my room, so my space was utilitarian at best. This is not to say that, at different times in life, I haven't lived with family members. I have and it didn't go as well as I would have hoped. I was still very selfish and didn't do my part. I was focused on everything else but participating in the home life. When my grandmother died, I only held onto a few traditions, until recently. I just didn't want to be there or anywhere. I didn't really care. Home was wherever I landed. A sense of belonging only flourished in Baltimore, where I went to college, and now, in Greensboro.

I graduated in 1994. I started a Masters of Arts in Teaching program, right after I graduated, but left for a variety of reasons. I had a little voice, in the back of my head, telling me I couldn't teach. I was desperately in love with my college sweetheart and wanted to be with him. The program was racist and I had had my fill of racism. I just wanted to escape fm my destiny.

I don't think now that men are the only ones who don't want to settle down until later on in life. Although I'd accomplished things, I wasn't a wife. I did most of it right. I constantly waned between being a single parent and remaining married. Single parenting what my mother did. I knew I could do it. I developed a fowl aftertaste for how she did it. I set out to do it better than she did and embraced a whole different set of values.

So, my comfort level is changing now. I know that everything is a choice, no matter how much we convince ourselves it isn't. I am comfortable living a distance away from my family and that's okay. I am not as comfortable living away fm my friends. I am comfortable with some areas of my life and not others. That's okay. I am learning to go to the places that cause me pain and get to the source. I am human and still hold onto memories and resentment that I needn't be attached to. Ironically, now, the lessons, that were taught to me as a child, are applicable today. I'm ready to make my own home with my children and a man. Submission isn't about the other person being right all the time. It's so much larger than that. my mother taught me to be stubborn, lol. I missed that she didn't teach me how to be soft.

Most of the women I admire are very strong, outspoken and loving women. They wipe away tears and lead you toward your destiny. They inspire your soul. They bring your tears so you can be cleansed. And, yes, they cry for and with you. They hug you. They embrace you. They are wives and mothers, in the most intimate sense. It's taken me over 20 years to understand what they each couldn't say. There's a balance to your life and you decide what your focus will be that day. It may seem like they do it all, but they each have specialities and get help when they need it. They had a mix of simplicity and righteousness. Certain things were just right. I'm almost to that place where my life is right for me and mine. I'm settling into adulthood now. Maybe I am a late bloomer.

Do you really know the power of intention?

Wow. I've been bombarded, it seems, with various signs that confirm desires and/or dreams I've held since childhood. I am truly amazed with the sense of peace I have now, after all of these years. After speaking with a friend, my issue is that I expected the problem to change, just because the location changed. NOT!! It's so much more difficult to journey internally than to pack up and move. It's harder to say to someone you care about that the words they speak are painful.

This past weekend, I was truly challenged to see the good in many of my choices and to remember my consequences. I cannot control genetics or how they manifest in my children. I cannot control when and if someone else works to enlightment me on an old subject. I can't escape the consequences by hanging out with people who really don't reflect who I am. I can't make it right by seeking solace in people who have consistently hurt me. I am inflicting way more pain than I deserve.

I never intended to hurt myself like this. However, feelings of serious abandonment and tokenism have eroded alot of my self-esteem. I never really felt good enough. It's only now, in my 37th year, that I sit with these feelings and see the source. I never allowed myself to really feel/experience the feelings and then let them go. I lived vicariously, until it got to where I couldn't either run from it or bury it.

I always intended to be a teacher and the founder of a school, much like my HS. My grandmother and my great-great aunt were teachers. We all share the same first name. Education was a passion for me, even in elementary school. I allowed other people to tell me what I couldn't do. I also used marriage and divorce as a way to escape fm my long-term goals. I idolized my teachers. It was that fire that brought me back to teach at my HS. I knew I could really reach the girls, b/c I had been there.

Now, the opportunity presents itself again, for me to really step back into myself. I see the interconnectedness between my new church home and a local private school. The minister is also a teacher. The counselor at my daughter's middle school could pass for my grandmother's twin. My English prof, last semester, asked me why I was there, if my goals were so different. I even spoke with another friend who asked me why I wasn't building my own school!!!

I have been afraid to be a teacher, especially an English teacher, b/c I have so much to learn and so much to impart. I love the English language and literature. I am a poet. I didn't believe I had the authority to truly impart my passion within a structured environment. I always thought of myself as an artist who could teach, not as a teacher who is an artist. My mother became my anti-teaching catalyst, b/c she rarely shared a love of the work she did for 17 years. She accomplished some things, but not what she desired. I truly do not want to ever walk away fm a job without some sense of satisfaction. So now, I sit, on the brink of sending out resumes to teach again.

I left an MAT program, b/c I really wanted to do something different. I sold books and magazines door-to-door. I got married. He joined the Marines. We had a child. We got divorced. I immediately went back to teaching. Then, after a year or so, I decided I needed a change and joined the Coast Guard. Even though I was in administration, my passion came from teaching my shipmates about mulitculturalism. After a 3 year hiatus, I went to work in a daycare center, as an administrator. Yes, I was in the classroom, too. I worked there for 3 years. Although I'm not a fan of teaching the little ones, I know how important it is.

I moved to Greensboro with the intention of getting my MFA in poetry, which changed to an MA in Liberal Studies, and settled into a teaching license in English. I wasn't comfy with giving up on the Masters, at all, but I had to do something. I also worked part-time, at another daycare center, where I was, again, a teacher. I was frustrated that I was hired as the Asst. Director and ended up teaching. I was also frustrated that what I was teaching had no curriculum. I just felt like it wasn't the right fit.

I've applied to all kinds of jobs, mostly in educational administration. I am challenged to see myself outside of education. My former boss consistently worked to put me in a classroom and I was very resistent. My issue was the age of the children, not the subject matter. So, coming full circle, I "discover" an MAT program with teacher licensure in English through NC State and positions are opening up in the public schools near me.

Things that are making me go Hmmmm.