A year ago this time, I was visiting my mother and contemplating whether or not it was the right time to take a big step in my life and get engaged to Greg. So much has happened since then, and so much will happen NEXT year, that I feel the urge to take stock of it for a moment.
This picture about sums up my reaction to joining the ranks of the engaged. I didn't really know how to feel. I knew I was supposed to be excited and happy, and I was, but I was also feeling some trepidation about planning a wedding, some shame that I had no proposal story, and some disgust with the wedding industry in general. Sharing the news with close family and friends was wonderful, but I remember the day that we went "public" (i.e., facebook) as mostly unpleasant. We put it up late one night in January, and I had no way of knowing that the following morning I would be enmeshed in a disciplinary meeting about one of my students; I remember sitting there in the dean's office trying to hide my left hand under the table because I didn't want anybody to remark on it at what seemed a supremely inappropriate time, and then getting a gushing, shrieking phone call from one of my co-workers, which I took because I thought it was work-related, and having to basically kill her excitement. Later I was fussed over in a staff meeting, but I felt guilty about everything, guilty about having no real story to tell people, guilty about feeling guilt in the first place. It was weird.
It's taken some time to get used to the ring on my finger, to referring to Greg as my fiance, to go from fantasizing about a wedding to actually putting one together. But I'm happier now with it, excited about our future together, and more and more certain, every day, that Greg is my match in every way.
This was the year I really came into my own at Interlochen. With fewer students and more responsibilities, I got to know them better and faced challenges I never would have thought I could handle. This was the year that I really started to believe that I was good at my job, that I enjoyed helping people, that I have good judgment, that I can keep a cool head in an emergency. I am proud of the work I did there. I think this year is when I really became an adult.
This time last year I never would have imagined leaving, but after the incredible and unexpected blessing of Greg's new job, I was able to quit, to uproot and take flight to a new and exciting city where we could live together and not have to take phone calls at midnight. Now, four months after moving and still unemployed, I still can't say that I regret my decision. I don't like being unemployed, but I do like the time to write, work on my grad school applications, and explore Chicago. I don't like having to rely almost entirely on Greg for finances, but it's taken our relationship to a new, more "married" level. I hate the emotional tug-of-war that has been my job search thus far, but I think I'm learning a lot about interviewing and searching, which may come in handy at some point. I miss my students, but I don't miss the constant, unrelenting pressures of living amidst them.
My mom's surgery was frightening and unexpected. It made me re-evaluate my relationship with her and how I've treated her in the past. It forced me to accept my parents' mortality on a different level. The two weeks I spent in Boston helping her recover from her surgery were difficult at times, but I'm so glad I could be there for her. I'm so incredibly grateful for my mother, and for the surgery that saved her life. When I think of what could have been, it brings me to my knees. She only discovered she had a problem because she made an offhand comment to her endocrinologist, who then referred her to a cardiologist for a checkup. That cardiologist told her that if she did not have surgery, she would almost certainly have suffered a heart attack in the next five months. Her quadruple bypass was scary and painful and wrenching for both me and her, but it spared us from something much, much worse.
Now it's been two months and she's doing even better than expected. She feels better every day, she's starting cardiac rehab soon, and with luck she'll be around for a very long time, something I will never take for granted again.
2012 is also going to be a big year. By May, I'll know for sure whether I'm going to be attending an M.F.A. program full-time with a teaching assistantship. Six months from today I'll be married. I'm going on a week-long trip to Hawaii in July with Greg to see volcanoes. And in the fall, if I'm lucky, we'll be moving again, this time to one of the sixteen (ugh) towns that houses a university I've applied to. It could be Miami or Minneapolis, Ames or Albuquerque, Carbondale or Corvallis, Richmond or Roanoke. I'm not going to pretend I like not knowing whether I'll be accepted, but I do enjoy the sense of adventure.
I've been more blessed than not in 2011. I hope 2012 will be the same.
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