Concentrating on the Positive

My family has turned into Facebook zombies, thus dragging me along with them to be better connected to my nieces and nephew. Yes, I am a Farm Town drudge.

Thing is, I've reconnected with many of my college friends that I haven't had direct contact with for years, just who talked to who and what's going on stuff. So many of them have been doing the graduation dance, with kids graduating from high school and under. They are all married, families, etc. and the old fiance is still married to the chick he threw me over for (because a pastor/cult leader told him it was the will of God), and they have several kids as well. I'm still single, no kids, and facing early menopause, so there will be no children for me, no matter what God may have in store. I have a widowed mother with health issues that I live with and care for, my brother's children that I support and adore, and that's it. Started bumming me out in ENORMOUS ways this past couple weeks. Found myself signing off Facebook because I couldn't take it any more.

So, I decided to shake the pity party and look at where my life REALLY is. I'm taking care of my Mama, who has spent her life taking care of me. She does my laundry, most of the cooking, and serves as my personal cheerleader. I'm working in a University, with intelligent, interesting people and learning new things each and every day, enjoying my day to day job for the first time in nearly 20 years. I am on the morgage, so I am a homeowner, and right now, my credit is better than Mama's and I just paid off my last school loan. On top of that, my classes are all paid for - job perk!

I'm working on the Master's in English that I should have done right out of undergrad. I have plans in place to continue and get my Doctorate, all courtesy of the State thaqt is paying me to work every day as well. I'm reading and analysing and discussing literature in a way I haven't had in 20+ years, and loving it. I'm excelling in my classes, and have been asekd by one of last semester's professors to take a summer course and assist in leading discussions, and he will be writing a letter for my CV - curriculum vitae - academic equivelent of a resume, and all important. Seeing as I would like to eventually teach for the school I'm at, and I'm not even a fully declared Master's student there and being asked to assist with instructing - that is an opportunity I cannot afford to pass up. So, I will be taking one class this summer, but it is the first step in some documented, hands on experience in a college classroom.

I had a suspicion, all the way back in college, that I would not be getting married and raising a family. It was just a ghost of a certainty that I couldn't shake. If I was married, my mother would have had to move to an assisted living facility and be deeply unhappy. She coudlnt' have her own home, babysit her granddaughter, decorate her house as she has never had the opportunity to do, design a backyard garden she has never had the chance to do, and she is 65. My nieces and nephew run to me on sight, and can't get enough of time with Mama and I. I have college students in my office every day looking for support and advice and encouragement. I have brilliant professors who swear that the department would fall apart if I left today. They talk about life as pre-Stace and post-Stace.

No, I don't have what most of my friends have. But I have a lot that they won't ever know either. I'm finally back on track to become what I believe I was destined to be, an educator, an intellectual, an awesome aunt. Life ain't so bad, now is it?

Peace

Need to Start Writing Again

Okay, life update. I'm still working at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and loving it! I run the Political Studies dept, and now the Global Studies dept, and the Public Affairs Reporting dept (one prof). But there is bigger news.

I have begun my Master's studies in English! I'm a year in, and also, mostly loving it. Never studied so much in my entire life. My causual, personal and creative writing has been sacrificed to the gods of homework, research, responsive writing and the reading of lit, some good and some a waste of time. I'm not taking any classes this summer, in an effort to read (my choices) and write (my stuff) again and recharge. Hope to spend significantly more time online and blogging, just stuff and reviews of books I'm devouring.

I'm an aunt . . . yes, again! This is number 4 blood, number 7 total, not counting the goddaughter. The new baby is Aubrey, and she is right at 4 months old. Now I have Jordan (15), Logan (8), Ragean (6) and Aubrey. She's marvelous, with dark hair like Logan and I, blue eyes like Raegan, and Jordan and Rick's face.