Clean sweeps.

I’m in transition. (I’m staying cisgender.)

I mean, that I am switching from a woman who has been working full time at home for ever and ever to a woman who is working outside the house five days a week. Its only around twenty plus hours when you add in the driving, but still. A sweeping hurricane of change. I’m almost never home when the kids get off the bus now.

Changes everything, doesn’t it.

Clean decks.

It’s been so long since I’ve done this (over a decade), but before kids, I have always done this. Multiple jobs, fitting together things that I offer, with things that jobs offer. Sometimes beauty, sometimes clothing, definitely learning, sometimes food and always some amount of money. I’ve never had ‘a career’, even though I was trained in education, I never had my ‘own’ classroom and so I cannot lay claim to teacher. I do so love working with kids but I just can’t see myself doing ‘school’ as a happy place to work.

These men and women who have taught these past few years? There is not enough money and time in the world to thank them for what they have had to work through. Let me say that again.

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY OR TIME IN THE WORLD TO THANK TEACHERS enough FOR WHAT THEY HAVE HAD TO WORK THROUGH IN THESE PAST FEW YEARS.

So, here I am, not a teacher, working outside the house, sometimes with people, flowers and chickens. I am tired and sometimes happy, and I am learning a lot about flowers, and about myself and how I handle things that I think are beyond my wheelhouse.

(wheelhouse is such a weird term, and the phrase too, geez. god.)

The kids seem okay, they are rolling with it. I’m just not available to help with forgotten uniform pieces and the one involved with that is just shrugging about it and facing his consequences, so thats cool. win.

And I’ve even had some of the romance knocked out of me, survived some days when the ‘manual labor’ part of things just flat-out sucked. Where my inner whine was a ‘oh my god, I really am not sure I can do this’ and a ‘i’ve got to stop and breathe, i’ve got to stop and breathe.’ Snow and outdoor chores are not friends.

So, the decks are clear, and reality is settling in, my hands aren’t pretty anymore, and my skin is toughening up.

(oh how i wish my spirit would toughen up. but no, not yet. still a dainty blossom over here. I have a new understanding of what a hot house flower really is.)

Actually, I suppose I am split on that one. I don’t really want to toughen up. I want to be stronger, yes, but just as soft.

I want to be stronger, yes, but just as soft.

I think maybe I need to write that on my bathroom mirror. I need to remember.