Looking Ahead to Tomorrow and On

I'm looking ahead to lots of stuff:

• hearing the plans for closing ceremonies
• experiencing Carrie Beth's demo
• packing up the supplies for this year
• getting my hair cut sometime next week
• taking my niece to get her senior portraits done (I wrote about her last year in the ISI)
• reading portfolios
• putting together the anthology from this year
• getting together the brochure for next year
• going to the beach with Wes's family
• the birth of my nephew, John Wesley (how cool is it that they wanted to name their son after Wes!)
• having a clean house (I don't look forward to cleaning it, but I love the after-effects)
• teaching a brand-new class in the fall, Grammar and Style
• planning some work with VECA--although I'm a little worried about teaching sixth- and seventh-grade students
• reading the Leadership and Continuity surveys to see what roles people want to play
• playing on the Wii, which Wes hooked up last night

I look forward to more stuff than I dread. Although I tend to be more pessimistic about my abilities than optimistic, in general I'm an optimistic person. I like myself, my husband, my family, my colleagues, my job, my life. Yep, I want to be thinner, nicer, more social, but whether or not that happens, I like the me I am. I'd prefer to have a housecleaner and a cook and a gardener and a teaching assistant and a graduate assistant, but I'm okay with the tasks I must undertake.

This is not going where I thought I would go this morning. I thought I would be funny. I want to be funny, but I don't feel funny--or even particularly smart this morning. I'm overwhelmed by the end, the end of this group of people meeting daily, the end of getting new ideas on a daily basis for my classes, the end of yummy breakfasts, the end of seeing Rebecca for almost a fortnight (okay, that word made me smile--I don't think I've ever used it before), the end of having an excuse not to get Wes's books caught up, the end of an excuse for having a cluttered house.

Okay, maybe there's another way to look at this: I'm looking ahead to a fresh start: a chance to have a clean house, a chance to catch up on Wes's books, a chance to balance our checkbook, a chance to plan the VECA classes, a chance learn from Rebecca about the Holocaust, a chance to lose weight, a chance to exercise, a chance to dig my toes into the sand at the beach, a chance to teach a new class for the first time, a chance to hold John Wesley in my arms (as opposed to what, I wonder?), a chance to experience Philadelphia with BWP friends, a chance to contact my legislators to remind them of the importance of supporting NWP, a chance to polish and refine the personal and professional me. I'm looking forward to seeing what I do with that chance.

And I look forward to seeing what you all do with your new chance in August.