Well, it is what it is, and I am what I am. It’s just that something is really wrong. You see, I am in a rut. I have made many false starts in the past 20 years, and I have left a lot of loose ends hanging, and now I find myself working in a day-care, and coming home from work so tired that all I can manage to do is walk my dog and feed my little fur-baby family. I think I really veered off course after David’s death. It was after that that I gave up trying to teach in the public schools and started my career all over again at 61 years old. But I had a lot of loose ends left before that.
Some of those loose ends that I mentioned above are friendships and business relationships with people, and that, I think is what hurts the most. But there are other false starts and loose ends too.
Career changes I tried to make, attempts to go back to school, businesses I wanted to start, networking programs I launched upon, but left dangling … and so forth …
Am I abnormal in the number of attempts at change and growth I have made? Can I go searching through all my documents to construct a list of things and people I need to reconnect with? I am going to try. Here. I am starting now. Here’s the beginning of a list:
Join a support group or three
Attend and tithe at New Creation United Methodist Church on a regular basis
Attend and give at Chapel Hill Friends Meeting on a regular basis too
Write a memoir
Establish a relationship with SCORE to help me manufacture and sell my “Dog Walking System” (that I worked with InventHelp on).
The Whirly Gig Bird by Elizabeth Moore Oudejans — I was going to purposefully read it to the children at a school I worked at and do something to promote the book.
Practice playing “Freight Train” (by Elizabeth Cotton) on the little Gibson guitar that David left me.
Design and teach a TESOL course after I earned my TESOL Certification from the outreach program at NCSU.
Get an associate’s degree in Paralegal Studies at Durham Technical Community College
Get an associate’s degree in Information Systems at Durham Technical Community College
Study Office Machines and Technology at Durham Technical Community College
Get certified in Grant Writing at the Center for Continuing Studies at Duke University
Join a grief support group
Start going to music concerts again
Start a business to make videos of people’s oral history interviews
Get back in touch with the Red Clay Ramblers, and that whole community.
Buy Dark Brown Transitions lens glasses from The Durham Eyeglass Company
Contact the Pittsboro Gallery of Art about putting on a show of my mother’s artwork
Becoming a freelance writer
Re-Start my Tutoring Business
Reunite with my classmates from CFS and Macalester
Write songs
This list is starting to get really daunting. I am not sure what to do with it. For now I am just going to leave it as it is.