Those Who Give Us Life

I've been doing a lot of thinking in recent weeks.  I've made some big life changes, and I've been working to reconnect with people who have influenced and inspired me.  I've learned a lot in 2019, but the most important lesson I've taken to heart is that we must surround ourselves with people who give us life.

I was a teacher for many years, and that work fueled my heart and fed my soul.  I created so many lasting relationships, both with colleagues and students, and I absolutely loved being at school each day, sharing my love of books, fawning over Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, and striving to make each student feel loved, honored, and appreciated as they are.  That's good work.

And man, was I surrounded by people who gave me life.  My teacher friends affirmed me, supported me, made me feel needed, laughed with me, emotionally ate with me, and cried with me.  Teaching is tough stuff, but if you have the right people around you, you really are part of a community.  I had the most fun I've had in my life with those friends in those years--the most fun.

But life has a way of signalling us, if we're open to receiving the signals, and that's just what happened to me.  Because just as we should surround ourselves with people who give us life, we must also erect boundaries between ourselves and those who do not.  It's a painful process, and it sometimes means we must move on from people and places we love.  Yet faith assures us that our inner genius, as Emerson always referred to our intuition, knows the way.

I am now in an environment where I can be authentically myself, where I am surrounded by people who affirm me, who know my character, who believe in my integrity and my dedication to goodness, who support me as I strive to do my part as a writer, a woman, and a human being.  In addition, I've been able to develop relationships that had been put in a box somewhere.  My teacher friends and I are closer in a different way, as we now have to make an effort to find time for one another--no more just popping next door.  A dear friend from whom I had drifted when I was struggling through this process was dutifully waiting for me on the other side, excited to get lunch during my lunch break (a foreign concept to teachers).  One of my colleagues in writing, a prophetic, powerful writer in her own right, recently shared her project with me, because now we have time to discuss it and to learn more about each other's processes and work.

My family time has shifted, but the quality has only improved as I come home each day stress-free and calm, ready to watch Wild Kratts or Downton Abbey, depending on which child is in the living room.

I have removed from my day to day those people who don't bring me life, and I'm focusing my efforts on those who do.  I pray that I myself am a life-bringer.  That has always been and will always be my goal.  Let us surround ourselves with people who support our goals, believe in us, know our hearts, love us in all our idiosyncrasies and faults, and want to see us thrive.  Then we shall, unashamedly, be our authentic selves.  Then we can really change the world for good.

Confessions

I'm currently reading I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life, by Anne Bogel, my delightful sister-in-spirit and creator of the blog "Modern Mr. Darcy".  If you read my blog but haven't read hers, then you've made a mistake and you need to head over there immediately.  #lifegoals

One chapter in I'd Rather Be Reading focuses on the books that avid readers are ashamed to admit they haven't read.  That got me thinking: perhaps it's confession time.

The truth is that I haven't purposefully avoided any of these works.  Somehow, despite my high school English classes, college English major courses, and graduate school English major courses, I never encountered them.  In fact, I own many of them...I just haven't picked them up.  Admittedly, there are a few I began but then put down for one reason or another.  Yet there are so many books to read, and only this one life, so when I'm not captivated I'm quick to put the book down and choose another.

In my twenties, I would refuse to "quit" a book.  Haha!  She who thought she had all the time in the world to read!  Now I have two children and I'm nearing forty--my available reading time has quickly diminished!  So I'm a quitter.  But rarely do I intended to walk away from the book, never to return.  I'll come back again and again until I read that book, but in the meantime...

My Shameless List of Books I'm Ashamed I Haven't Read

Grapes of Wrath: Okay, so I've read selections from this one, and I've read almost every other Steinbeck novel.  But the truth is that I've faked having read this book on multiple occasions.  See, I'm already defensive.
Little Women
Persuasion
The Secret Garden
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Oliver Twist
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Sherlock Holmes (and I mean...any of it)
The Three Musketeers
Madame Bovary
The Pillars of the Earth
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Roots
Catch 22
1984
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Where the Red Fern Grows: Okay, I admit it.  I lied.  I've avoided this one.
Atlas, Shrugged
Any book in the series other than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Age of Innocence
Lord of the Rings: Caveat--I read the first book and half of the second.  I left off in the middle of a rather long poem, as I recall...

Now that I've unburdened myself, I ask you, dear readers--which shall I read first?