Staying afloat

The other night I dreamed I slept through summer. I went to bed in the spring, and I woke up in the fall.  Reverse hibernation.  It was a very vivid dream, and when I woke up, which was in the middle of the night, I was mourning the lost months.  It took me a minute to realize I had been dreaming.

I have been so, so tired lately.  And time has been going by so, so fast.  I feel like I could sleep through a season, but it would only be about a week.  I can't believe it is May already.  I taught my last religious education class on Sunday and went out to lunch with the teachers. The last middle school track meet was last week. I helped coach again, so several hours a week have now opened up. My junior has been taking AP tests the past two weeks and took the SAT last weekend (bad timing).  He also passed his driving permit test, but we haven't had time to practice driving yet.  

Also, my spring classes ended on Friday, so I spent much of the weekend grading. The research papers were almost all padded by blatant attempts to up the page count by widening margins, double spacing subheadings, and quoting at length from sources.  I did have a couple papers that were memorable, one about adopting older children that made me want to sign up and one an impassioned plea for the independence of Hawaii.  And I  learned about the phenomenon of grounding or earthing - walking around barefoot to exchange ions with the earth for better health. 

We had multiple errands on Saturday and an end of the year confirmation class party on Sunday.  Now I'm frantically trying to get my summer class set up (taking a break to refocus). I was late submitting my Blackboard request, because April went by so quickly. Determined to create more videos this term. 

Spring is always the busiest time of year for me in terms of brain power. Christmas is busy in a different way - running around shopping, going to events, decorating, and sending cards.  But spring has all of the end of the year events that require planning and forethought. We have someone's birthday every month from February to July, even though we rarely plan parties any more. Summer plans need to be made. It's time to sign up for camps and classes.  We have a reprieve this year from college planning, but this summer is essay writing season for the junior in high school. Last year we were planning graduation and promotion events. The year before that we were planning to move. 

This year I feel like we should be moving, but we aren't.  We debated about looking to move into a smaller, less expensive home, but there aren't many available that are less than what we are paying, and none that more affordable but also big enough for us.  I still spend time browsing the paper and Facebook rentals page. We'll have both college kids home this summer, and rents have gone up even in just two years.  And we may only be here another year.  So instead of seriously house hunting, we are praying that our rent doesn't go up when our lease renews in August.

On the other hand, my husband does keep reminding me that we could try to stay here for three to four more years for him to retire.  The thought makes me nervous. Retirement means being prepared for the unknown of finding another job to get us through the next twenty or thirty years - Or even just two or three years until just the right job is found. And I'm not sure I want to spend three more years here. When we moved here, we did so thinking it would be temporary. 

There is much to love about where we live.  Most people do love it.  Everything is really pretty right now.  I get frustrated with the schools, but they are better than average.  I have made some wonderful friends - and am partly behind on my classes because I socialize too much.  Being able to walk everywhere makes it easy to do things.  I do feel more at home, although I hesitate to invest my heart into belonging here. 

A friend from the midwest passed through Monday night, and we went for a long walk on Tuesday morning. She couldn't stop commenting how pretty everything is and how much she loves our unusual house.  Her praise helped me remember to look again at all the pretty things, even when I am fed up with the schools, irritated with sports, and anxious about contesting a traffic ticket that I don't want to pay and letting more money bleed away.

Her witness also reminded me that we have so, so much to be thankful for, and could be doing so much more to help others. She works as a director of Dirty Vagabonds, a mission to evangelize inner city teens. These kids live in abject poverty. They parent themselves and their drug addicted parents.  Some of them are drug addicts.  They get shot at.  They are forgotten by the world or ignored.  Their world is too dark and complex to be fixed with any quick and easy program.  They have minimal hope for a better future.  She tries to give them hope and faith and love, but hers is a hard and mostly thankless job. Right now she has a recovering drug addict and her two little kids living with her.

My friend is the kind of person who is really living the gospel. She is a poster child for Pope Francis's call to accompany the poor and the lonely. She was in town to give a talk about the necessity of evangelization to the poor, about the need for a message of hope and of compassion in addition to the free meals and the place to stay.  And listening to her, I realize all this busyness, all this self-absorption, is a waste of time and energy.  

We need these everyday saints to walk among us and remind us of how much more we can give, even when we think we are emptied out.