When It Rains it Pours...

I am needing rest and relaxation more than ever this year, but as they say "when it rains it pours." I feel like life keeps throwing me extremely difficult situations that I can barely handle right now: Family, Personal, Health, & Work. Stress is a huge hurdle for me and my Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and other health issues that I am struggling with right now. Stress turns into anxiety and insomnia for me which just makes me unable to function as a normal human being. My entire body hurts for no particular reason and I tend to shut out everything and retreat into myself and rewatch tv shows that I have watched a million times for a sense of comfort. However, this week though I am feeling like crawling into my cocoon and resting I am unable too. Sometimes I forget that I am so much more than a teacher and I need to stop and remind myself that life is so much bigger than my job. Here is my rant on life outside of my education bubble...

My grandfather was a very strong and inspiring person. He had been struggling with cancer and dementia for the past few years and recently embarked on his last great adventure and joined my grandmother in Heaven. This has been an incredibly difficult time for my mom and her sisters as well as myself and my cousins. We have loved and lost so many of our family members over the years and it never gets easier. I wish that I could do more to help them through this time, but I am feeling pulled in so many different directions with other parts of my life like my own family and career. I am at peace knowing that he led a wonderful life full of adventure and love, but man will I miss his jokes and conversations about aliens. One moment that comes to mind is when my cousin and I were staying with my grandparents for the weekend. We were watching a "scary movie" called Signs, and it got to the point in the movie where the alien makes its first on screen appearance and out of nowhere my grandfather pops up behind us and scares the absolute daylights out of my cousin. My gramps (as we call him) and I were laughing so hard, and my cousin was screaming every foul word she knew at him. Eventually we all had a good laugh about it after the shock of that perfect timing wore off. He has always had a fascination with the unknown and has always told us jokingly that he was from the planet Beetlejuice. His favorite TV show is Ancient Aliens and his favorite movie had always been The Fifth Element. He always made sure I had good grades in school and supported me, even though he thought I was too young, when I got married to my husband at 19. I will always remember him driving me to my wedding in his cherry red 1960's Chevrolet Caprice with the top down, and asking me if we needed to turn it into a get away car. He was always tinkering with something (the engineer in him) and had a never ending list of projects that he needed help finishing. He always made my husband feel welcomed into the family and they enjoyed having conversations about engineering and their fascination with the show Ancient Aliens. He has made lasting impacts on my life and he will be greatly missed. The holiday's have been difficult since his passing. I feel so pulled to spend all of my time with my mom and family this year.

Have you ever seen the movie Four Christmases? That is my husband and I's holiday routine. We both come from divorced families and it makes the holidays so stressful. We did have it planned to go see family this year in North Carolina, but that just didn't work out, so now we are going to see all 4 families in one weekend and I have conflicting feelings. Don't get me wrong, I adore our families and love spending time with them but I always feel like I am expected to be "on" all the time and don't get to allow my body and mind to relax like it needs to when we go home to our parents. I am craving a week of being wrapped up in blankets and reading books by the fireplace and not running around Fort Myers and Cape Coral trying to appease everyones need for time with us and cooking multiple meals for Christmas (the thought literally stresses me out this year).

While all of this is going on I am also dealing with infertility with my PCOS. I have had every test imaginable and every doctor has told me it is not impossible to have my own kids. However, insurance does not cover IVF or IUI and I do not think I could handle all of the trauma of going through the ups and downs of that process and spending so much money each month on those treatments. I did have a fertility doctor tell me that some of the procedures for these treatments would be dangerous for me in my current state and advised against it. My husband and I have decided that family is what you make it, not necessarily blood. We have decided to go down the path of adoption as an option. There is so much information to go through and we honestly have not had 15 minutes to sit down and actually contact agencies and lawyers and get the process moving. This does cost a lot of money as well, so that is an added stress on us too. From what I have heard we need to have all of the money (around $65,000 in Fl.) liquid and ready before we truly start the process. This is just another added stress that doesn't help my already anxiety ridden body. We are looking into starting a GoFundMe, but I am worried that no one will donate and it would be a waste of time. We have concidered Fostering, but I would get too attached and it would be awful to watch them go if we did not have the opportunity to do a foster to adopt option. This is all so overwhelming for me.

I have been watching all of my friends families sprouting up before my eyes and it is so exciting, yet a constant reminder that I will never have that experience in that same way. On one hand I LOVE the life that my husband and I have created for the two of us but in the back of my mind I want so much more for our life together. I want all of the family experiences: introducing a child to my best friend and family, family portraits, holiday festivities, and all of the birthday parties with themes (I love planning a good party). I am unsure if this will ever happen for us, but hopeful that it will happen when and if it is supposed to.

We have so many different home renovation projects planned, some that are very necessary before we bring a baby or child home. We need new doors and windows and even a new pool gate. These keep piling up and being pushed off to the side even though they are SO IMPORTANT, because quite frankly we just don't have time or energy to put towards them. Not to mention that the more we put towards renovations the less we have in the fund to go toward adoption. It can be a lot to think about.

School has definitely had its ups and downs this year so far. I feel like I am so emotionally and mentally drained by the end of the day that I can't get anything done that is of importance in my personal life when I got home each day. I am a literal zombie. I am a living, breathing, teaching, zombie, machine. I feel like the new curriculum is way harder than my students can handle and the testing is insanely difficult from the state. I am so proud of the gains that my students made last year, even with all of the obstacles put in their way. I feel like this year my gains are not going to be on par with previous years and it will not only let my students down, but also my administration that likes to make a big deal out of this.

Not much has made me happy lately....I'm really great at masking so no one really knows. I have taken many mental health days this year and it was the most I've felt like me in a while. I got to spend some much needed time with my husband and got to run errands and clean my house. It made me realize that there is so much more to life than the stress of my job. It has me thinking through things and trying to make plans that will fit my needs in the future. I found a few new hobbies that seem to peak my interest and it might help alleviate these feelings of overwhelming dread that seems to be looming over me lately.

I am ging to be using those hobbies to my advantage over the next few months and will be starting TeacherPayTeacher, Amazon, and Etsy stores. Keep an eye out for 2CuteToTeach updates (Sadie & I's dream crafting boutique name). I hope to start it by this summer.