((Editor’s note: post originally was a draft from 2008. doing some housekeeping up in here))

I have always preferred instant regret.

Kerry had a difficult student who had gotten into trouble many times before. She had a rap sheet quite long and had previously irritated many adults before. This girl came with a reputation and lived up to it. It seems that many people, in dealing with her, warned her about where she was headed. It’s what we do. We try, sometimes to no avail, to let students know what’s in store for them if they don’t straighten up and fly right. It’s a bad, bad habit and can go awry.

When Kerry was at her wit’s end she said, “You know, if you keep acting this way you’re going to end up at the alternative school!”

My friend didn’t expect the reply she got.

“I know how to get there. Everyone has always told me how to get there! What I want to know if how to get to that college I’ve seen on the tv. Can you tell me what I need to do to get there?”

Damn. Those lessons we learn as the adults in schools are sometimes really hard to learn.

No one can control my thoughts. Though they may pontificate and judge my actions, but my thoughts are my own.

I am raw and tender and sick to death of everyone expecting more from me because “I know better”. Sometimes, I want to just do what I want because I want to do it. No explanation required.

I am mired in a swirls of secrets that I keep and because I do, I am weary. But I am letting them go a little at a time. Not all at once. They are too much and some are not mine to tell.

Once, I heard it said that “everybody needs a sanctuary from the storm” and that is so right. I have built something of my own and made it mine and don’t want to apologize for it’s extravagance. It is because I say it is, I want because I choose to want.

There is no pretending that I have come to this sanctuary a flawed and hurt person, but I am a widow of depression and I would not chosen to come here this way.

But the space is here and the timing is now and who am I to tell it to go away and leave me be?

My secrets I will keep and my life will be doled out in pieces that I chose to share and if that makes me flawed beyond compare I must wonder: am I the only one who feels this way?

Certainly not. But this sanctuary space is mine and I will cherish it for the time I have with it. How can I ever hope to make a difference with my life if I don’t cherish. Cherishing is my hope.

*these are merely thought pieces I’ve written in my offline diary and a narrative, I think, would detract from the raw feelings I hope to have presented here*

So in your jobs and your daily dealings with people I must ask: how do you get through without feeling entirely weary? How do you get up, wash your face, eat your Wheaties, and make it through another day when you don’t see the positive changes you had hoped to make an impact on when the hubris of your youth was your driving force?

I really want to know.