Letting Go of Good Things

Here's a rambling of my ideas, as of late.

It's been hard for me to write this fall, since starting at Timothy. You may notice that, over the past two years, it's been harder for me to write consistently. I think it has *something* to do with the juggling act of adulthood that hit me all at once when I got married, moved to the suburbs, and switched jobs to have my own classroom. All at once. 

I got bogged down with things like laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning and lesson planning and summer jobbing and it all just took over my day-to-day. 

Teddy and me. 

I have this habit in the morning that I've fallen into over the past few years. While I'm blow-drying my hair, instead of focusing on the styling thereof, I sit and scroll through interesting articles on social media and various news outlets. I get updated on the world and the world of my friends, both of the real and Facebook varieties. 

Well, this morning on my daily catch-up, I came across a post from Elizabeth Gilbert that was really great. Here's part of it: 

"Long ago, when I was struggling to become a writer, a wise older woman once said to me, "What are you willing to give up, in order to have the life you keep saying you want?"

I said, "You're right — I really need to start learning how to say no to things I don't want to do."

She corrected me: "No, it's much harder than that. You need to learn how start saying no to things you DO want to do, with the recognition that you have only one life, and you don't have time and energy for everything."

So she continued on with a statement she posed to many good, but needing-to-be-cut things in her life. This is what she said to them: I love you, but I'm letting you go. 

This just resonated with me so much. This fall has been one big blur without the catharsis of writing in my life. It was the beginning of the year rush and then the October slump and now we're entering the holiday hustle and oh my goodness I have hardly processed what's been going on. My life has been ruled a little too strongly by media of all kinds. From news to Facebook to Instagram to Netflix to Hulu to Huffington to blogs to Vine when I'm feeling ridiculous and everything in between. If I look back, this media monster has probably eaten hours and hours of my life this fall. In some ways, media is great. It connects me to the world and all that nonsense, but it really kind of disconnects me in the end. I've been consuming so much that I've been losing my ability to create. The only thing I've written in the last little while that I've been any ounce of proud about was my little tribute to my Grandpa Gesch. My uncle Curt dubbed it to be "perfect," and that is just about the best validation I could've asked for, coming from such a fantastic writer. 

So I've decided to take a note from Liz Gilbert, such an incredible writer herself, and say to my overkill on media: I love you, but I'm letting you go. I thought about it long and hard, and I figured out that the things that make me feel creative and alive and myself are the two simplest: reading and writing. And I'm not going to confuse reading with scrolling. I just started the book we'll be reading for book club when we meet over Thanksgiving weekend. And so as a part of all of this I'm back here, feeling good about writing, checking in on my life, and archiving where I'm at right now. 

So what have I been up to? 

One small struggle is that I am missing a lot from year to year. I miss last year. I really, really miss Calvin Christian School. I miss the city life. I miss living with roommates with whom I could share clothes. I miss my Teach For America hustle and realness and colleagues. I miss attending grad school (I know, nerd alert.) I miss living with my best college friends. I miss a lot. And I've only been at this adulating thing for three and a half years. 

Brian has been a huge catalyst for me becoming who I am going to be this year. He is here, he is supportive, and he is so, so dependable. I'm not even here, supportive, or dependable for myself! He gets the teacher thing, and I love building our friendship right along with our marriage. Sometimes I roll my eyes in annoyance at his quirks, and then sometimes I sigh with relief as he endures all of mine. Sometimes we watch dumb TV shows together (Hello, Bob's Burgers) and completely get each other. Sometimes we are in the day to day and that's all it feels like: a regular old routine day where our paths don't do too much crossing. Sometimes I can't even believe how much I love him. It's all of the above. 

One huge effort in my life is that I've been looking for and grasping at community out here in the Western suburbs. We've joined a small group in Oak Park, I've been attending a Writer's Group with my mother-in-law (actually super cool), joined a Thursday night volleyball league, I'm joining/starting a book club with my friend Reese, and I started a more intense Bible study with my mentor and another girl from church. When I see all of that in one list, I feel pretty proud. I'm starting to feel a little more grounded in all of life. I know and can surely feel that the grind of the fourth year of teaching in the third consecutive school is getting to me too, with all the upheaval that goes along with that. But these little groups, little connections that God has allowed me to receive, have made me feel oh so much more connected. To other people, to myself, to Him.

So thanks, Liz Gilbert, for the advice. I miss a lot of things. I'm learning to let some of those go to make way for the new. 

Don't Let It Be

October can be hard. It can be, if I let it be. (Spoiler alert: I tend to let it be hard.)

In my lowest moments, I begrudge the rest of the world and their Pumpkin Spice Lattes, crunchy leaves, and comfy knitted sweaters, while I'm getting a little too anxious about the first quarter ending, my progress reports and grading getting finished, and finding myself again exhausted after the first few months in a new classroom in a new school. I'm exhausted with my job, but I'm also exhausted with myself, too. I tend to feel a little weary of my own lack of discipline, my own insecurities, and my own tired mistakes. For some reason, all of that hits me in October. And here we are, right in the middle of it.

And yet, here in the midst of a hard few weeks, I've had so many sweet moments. So much joy, too.

I think of (my first time!) visiting ArtPrize, led around by the best tour guide on earth (none other than THE Liz VanDrunen). I think of a good-natured husband, who actually shows interest in my art nerd interests and picked his own favorites out of the bunch right along with mine.

I think of reunions and a few weddings in the past month that just were full of happy moments and well wishes to fantastic couples. Beautiful wedding days, and, again,  good times with the one I married a little over a year ago.

I think of little notes from my kind, thoughtful, and happy kids, who remind me that I'm a good teacher after all.

I think of how I started playing volleyball again, and with that, remembered all over how much I love playing a sport with a team. Even if it is in the B league. (And proud of it.)

I think of coworkers that have been way too nice to me, helpful beyond their job requirements, and graciously accepting of my learning curve while I figure it all out.

I think of a small group and mentors at church, and how they are slowly but surely shaping my view of how capital-G-Good God's family is.

Hmm. When I put it this way, October doesn't seem so bad after all.

I think the slump happens because I let it exist. I think I won't let it be hard anymore. I will just let it be what it is: a beautiful and hard mix of busy-ness, a change in life pace, and full of reminders of connections and relationships that mean the world to me.

I'll be saying that to myself: Anna, don't let this season be so hard. Let it be all the good stuff that it truly is. Now go change into a cute sweater and whip up some hot chocolate, please and thanks.

When Everyone Gets Picked

Something so awesome happened in my classroom this month. I really can't take credit for it, since I didn't really have all that much to do with it. It was one of those golden moments of teaching when you realize that kids have so much more to offer than we give them credit for.

We do this project at Timothy in second grade where the kids make a model of a community. We look into the differences and similarities between places that are rural, urban, and suburban. The kids bring in recycled materials to think up and build their own skyscrapers, subdivisions, and silos. Then we have a painting day in the art room and all hell breaks loose. It's an adorable, fun, messy, and wonderful project that I had no hand in planning: my team just told me how to do the whole thing and I followed suit. It's great.

One of the elements, though, of the unit, is a questionnaire that we give the students about what kind of project they would prefer to create. It's good to have a variety of models in one classroom, so we try to see if at least a few kids want to make one of the three types of communities. I'm all for this. One element of this questionnaire, though, of which I was skeptical, was the part where each student could choose three friends that they would prefer to have in their group. I hate stuff like that. As an elementary teacher, one of my personal goals for my classroom is that it is a place where no long-term emotional scarring takes place. I've heard too many stories from people my age and older who still remember the time they were shamed for X, Y, or Z by the teacher, or remember examples of pure human evil in the form of recess time and dodgeball. I'd really rather not have my kids talking to their therapist as twenty-somethings, saying "Well, that one time, we did this group project in Mrs. Whartnaby's class and nobody picked me! I've felt isolated and alone ever since!" 

So, before I passed out the questionnaires, my class and I had a long, serious talk about how we show love in this classroom and that anybody's name we choose to write down needs to stay anonymous. (We defined anonymous first, though, obvi.) Because, you know, of the feelings. And the therapy.

So we filled out the questionnaires and I collected them and then it was the weekend. I finally got to my stack of papers on Sunday afternoon, as I am often want to do, and was pretty stinking pumped when I read the results. Can I tell you what I saw? EVERY KID IN MY CLASS HAD THEIR NAME CHOSEN FOR A GROUP. Not one kid in the room was lacking for a group member who picked him or her. Now, I know that all of God's children are precious, but don't you dare tell me that His children aren't quirky. And just like any class of kids, we definitely have our quirks. We have the socially different, the caller-outers. the aggressive, the passive, the shy, the dominators, and the clumsy. And yet each child, in spite of their inevitable quirks, had another in the room who deemed them worthy of being chosen.

On Monday morning, when I told them about their group assignments, I couldn't wait to tell them. GUESS WHAT SCHOLARS! YOU WERE ALL PICKED! Each and every kid had a sheepish smile creep along their face as they glanced around the room, wondering who had picked them, and then the glorious grin that occurred when it doesn't make a difference who wrote whose name down: the point remained that it was written! When everyone gets picked, everyone wins.

I just couldn't help but mentally draw all the delicious parallels to the other, most important way that all kids are picked and chosen: by their creator, long ago, to be fearfully and wonderfully made, for a real and significant reason. They've all already been chosen in a way so important that it doesn't matter all that much if they had a bad day at school when nobody put their names on a group project questionnaire. But for now, in an effort to avoid the therapists office for this issue one day, I consider it a sweet, sweet victory. Not one that I orchestrated, but one that I had the privilege to watch as it came to be.

I know I'm far from being a veteran teacher, and sometimes, in the thick of spring testing season, when I'd hear those wise reflections from seasoned colleagues about kids being more than test scores and the like, I'd take their word for it, but I didn't totally feel it yet. I was still being evaluated as if my kids were test scores, I was still sort of teaching as if my kids were test scores, so it was hard to separate what I knew in my heart to be true and what I saw in my own practice to be happening. I'm still getting there even now as I try to internalize it during each instructional day. But the other day, when everyone was picked, another piece of that truth hit my heart. When everyone gets picked, that's when the magic happens.

One Year Takeaways

When I joined Teach For America I learned about the word "takeaways" and used it often. My managers and supervisors were always asking me things like: "What are your takeaways from your behavior management coaching session?" "What are your takeaways from your first week of teaching?" "What are your takeaways from the webinar on differentiation?" There was so. much. reflecting. When you're on the crazy road of TFA and have to travel along a very fast learning curve, you have to constantly reflect and adjust. Well, it's a habit that I can't quite shake, and so here I am using it for marriage! (Romantic, I know!)

July 12 marked our first anniversary. I love looking at our wedding pictures over and over, reliving the amazing day we had. It really was the best day of my life. I have a vivid memory of my cheeks hurting so badly because I smiled so much. I also remember hardly getting anything from the bar (maybe one glass of wine?) because I was dancing for three hours straight and just chugged water for hydration purposes. My parents threw us a fabulous party. My dream.

It's been one year with my man. Brian has been such a fantastic husband, I could get really gushy, but I'll try to spare you a little bit. All I can say is that I couldn't ask for anyone better. Learning about married life with him has been one of the best adventures of my life.

From time to time, I annoy Brian with these reflection questions and ask for his takeaways for things in life. ("What are your takeaways from Christmas this year?" "What are your thoughts about how this year of teaching went?" "What are your takeaways from that song in church this morning?") Poor guy. He humors me and does his best to answer them. I applied this to marriage and asked him the other day: "What are your takeaways from our first year of marriage?" Like a champ, he came up with great ones to add to my own little list. Here are a few things we learned about being married for one year, from Brian and Anna. I think his are the best ones.

1. Little things matter. (B) Doing dishes, paying the bills, running to the store to get the groceries, wiping down counters, and making the bed seem to be menial things. They end up being the big things. Most of the little things cost very little or no money at all, and end up making the biggest difference to both of us. (Ladies, Brian agreed to do all the dishes whenever I cook the food. Get jealous.)

2. Go to bed angry. (A) I can't take credit for this nugget of wisdom - it was passed along to me at some juncture from someone - but I can't believe how true it is. I understand the heart of intent when someone says: "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." I even believe the biblical reasons for it. I'm going to interpret that to mean "Don't hold a grudge - don't drag out feelings of discontent and bitterness." I am NOT, however, going to interpret that to mean "Work through disagreements at 11:30 pm while drowsy, emotional, and cranky. Delve into the depths of your differing points of view on politics, religion, and relationships when most of the world is entering its second REM cycle." It's just not helpful. But oh my goodness you guys, I feel so much kinder and thoughtful and more forgiving after a full night's sleep. Problems are so much easier after you sleep on them. Our solutions are reached 100 times faster this way.

3. Don't be defensive. (B) Listen to what the other is saying without needing to build up your own case. See the heart of what's going on. Defending something implies that an attack is happening, which means a fight. No need for fights. If I can put it into caveman terms for you: Fights bad. Conversations good.

4. Thou shalt not watch agreed upon TV series without the other. (A) Now, both of us have been guilty of a little Netflix infidelity as of late. Brian totally went ahead on House of Cards, and I recently broke this rule with Orange is the New Black. Honesty is key, though, and we're working through our issues here. Admitting there's a problem is the first step, right?

5. It's really important to eat together. (B) This has been a big one for us. I love being married to a teacher, because he totally gets it. He understands the pace of life, the stressful breakdowns, and the Sunday night blues like only a fellow teacher could. A teacher's life means stretches of chaos and stretches of catch-up and rest. In all the ebbs and flows of busy life, having even 20 minutes of eating and talking together with no screens and no other distractions has become one of the best parts of my day.

6. Always keep dessert in the house. (A) I never knew how important this one was. I think it's a Whartnaby family thing, of which I am now a member, so I guess it's now my thing too! I've never seen the effects of cookies, brownies, and treats work such wonders. It's magical and so simple. Want the recipe for a happy Brian? Just add ice cream.

7. Cuddle a lot. (B) Ha! His tough guy public persona is a goner. Sorry, Brian.

All practicalities aside, I turn to a puddle when I think about how God worked out our story, about how I got this guy placed in my life at just the right time! Life's not perfect, but so far we've been granted a pretty fantastic path. Providence has never seemed so real to me as it does now.

It's been a great year :)

More dessert. 

So That Happened

I'm currently on a long weekend visiting Alex and Heidi in Washington D.C. with my mom. It's been a great time of hanging out and catching up with them as well as Heidi's side of the family who is out around these parts as well. On Friday, my mom and I decided to visit the Newseum, which, by the way, is one of the best museums I've ever been to. I'll post pictures and a little description of that later of course, but I had to share this super super awk moment. A moment that some might say would only happen to me. But maybe this has happened to you and you can relate. Whether you're sharing in my misery or laughing at it, here's the story either way.

So there I was, minding my own business in the FBI exhibit of the Newseum. It had writeups of famous cases where the FBI was involved and artifacts and descriptions of interesting details of each. My mom was in the same area of the museum, but at a different display. I was standing by myself examining the letters from the Unabomber when, all of a sudden, an unknown human came from behind me and grabbed me around my hips, meaning to scare me. It was one step away from a butt grab. It was definitely one of those try-to-make-your-girlfriend-giggle-and-smile moments except for the fact that I was not this stranger's girlfriend, nor was I giggling, nor was I smiling.

Now, maybe it's where I live, maybe it's more about where I work, but I have a personal space instinct that I gets me a little ghetto when it is invaded. I whipped my head around with an emphasis on the neck motion, looked at the guy with my eyebrows slanted inward, and go, "What the HECK?!" in a very pointed tone as I leaned back on one hip.

The guy looked at me, realized I wasn't who he thought I was, slapped his hand over his mouth, and went into a word-vomit session of I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry and OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh and I thoughtyouweresomeoneelse! over and over.

Realizing that he was so embarrassed, I of course switched right into people-please mode and went into my own word vomit session of It'sokayIt'sokayIt'sokay and awkward laughing and Don'tevenworryIdon'tevencareIt'snotevenabigdeal.

After this exchange, we, of course, ran into him and his parents about 4 different times in the next 30 minutes.

It was weird. And I know we overuse the word awkward as young people in American society, but I think it justifies this situation. IT WAS SO AWK. 

Woof. Continue on with your day. And make sure the girl you're grabbing is really who you think she is unless you want some ghetto-fab attitude cominatchya. Life lesson #4562.

The Dirty Laundry

I've been reading, hearing, and thinking a lot lately about the conundrum we all have in 2013 and the social reality in which we live with one another. I've heard a sermon on it at church, read a few blog posts, saw a status or two, and had a few conversations with friends all about this issue. The issue of our dichotomy as young people with iPhones, iPads, and instagrams. The dichotomy between life as it actually is and life as you present it. Your life as it is neatly displayed on your Facebook facade or your life as it is in the nitty gritty.

I've had feelings that go both ways. I've sat there and rolled my eyes at the girls who put on makeup and tease their hair into a styled ponytail to work out so that their fitness blogs are cutely adorned with their hawt workout pics. Yes, I just wrote "hawt." Just admit that you eat a heaping bowl of ice cream sometimes just to make me feel better about myself! I've also thought to myself: dang. You go girl. You work out in 3 inches of makeup and fake lashes. You do that. Power to you because Lord knows I wouldn't ever put that much effort into working up a sweat. Work that updo.

And being in your 20's poses this challenge in a particularly difficult way. This is the decade of life stages coming through in rapid succession. College life, graduation, working world, independent living, engagements, marriages, kids, moves, trips, vacations, and more all start to pop up on our feeds every time we flip our thumb to scroll to the next screen. With all the happiness, success, cuteness, and beautiful things that people are doing and seeing, you can kind of feel like you're not quite making the cut. Or even worse, you start to harbor a sense of envy and disdain for anyone who seems to have a Pinterest-perfect little life. You might start to think: Why is she always so stylish? I could never afford those clothes. Or..Why are their kids always so cute and well-behaved? Mine are terrors most of the time. Or...Look where they got to go on vacation. I can't remember the last time I was on a beach. Those thoughts start to get dangerous. I have them from time to time, and it does absolutely nothing to harm the target in my head. The only person whom it damages is me. Getting caught up in the competition is just not worth it. I suppose I really am real-life-Anna when I'm writing on my blog, but there are definitely bad days (this Monday, ahem...) that I choose not to share and relive every time I scroll through my old posts. And that's okay.

I bet that even the fake-lash-cake-make-up-workout-girl wakes up on a Monday morning with a zit on her forehead. Or gets heartburn. Or forgets to shave her legs. Do you really want her, in the name of being honest, to blog about that stuff? Maybe, but I say let her be good at what she is good at and share it with people who want to read it. 

Or how about those parents who inundate your facebook feed with pictures of their cute and perfect little angels? Do you really want to read a status a day complaining about no sleep, no spare time, funds getting tighter, and bratty screaming tantrums, just for the sake of transparency? Maybe, but I think we can just let them have their moment of cuteness in the midst of their chaos. 

Do you really want, in a sense of an egalitarian social media society, everyone to just air their dirty laundry out in public? Just to even the field? Just to prove that we all have parts of our lives that suck? Mmmmm, maybe not.

So what then, run away from it all and delete all of our accounts and adopt amishdom? Some of you brave cooler-than-me hipsters can do this, but I love the connectedness and joy that all of these good social media things bring. So only one option is left. I think the best thing you can do is to give thanks for everything. Be grateful that there are interesting, beautiful, and talented people in this world doing exciting, funny, and meaningful things with their lives, who, of all things that they could do with these wonderful things, want to SHARE it with YOU!

So go like that picture. Go favorite that tweet. Heck, go nuts and reblog a post you like. Share the encouragement, the beauty, the inspiration, the ingenuity, and the intelligence. Be happy for the cute kids, the hip lattes in local coffee shops, the intense fitness routines, the beautiful weddings, the huge engagement rings, and the cool apartments. Let people sort through their own dirty laundry themselves and just be thankful that there is a God who gives good things that people want to share. We all know that there is no such thing as a perfect life, so just be happy when there are parts of it that are wonderful and good and beautiful and pleasant. There is a God who brings us all of these things and is now bringing us together because of them.

So go scroll that newsfeed. And be thankful.

You Better Believe It

So I noticed the date this past Sunday. It has been a YEAR since I graduated from college and I absolutely cannot believe it. I’m an adult! (Yep, read that sentence just like you SNL-lovers all read it.)

That feels wrong. It feels wrong to say that I’m an adult because I honestly have no idea how to change the oil in my car. I feel like that’s something adults should be able to do, and I don’t know how to do it. I feel like a 14-year-old trying to fly under the radar and hope nobody notices that I’m playing hooky from 7th period only to send me back from whence I came. I usually feel like a complete imposter in this adult world post-graduation.

 Last week, however, I had someone at work pay me the compliment that they were surprised that I was 23. They thought that I acted more like a “27-year-old or something”, not a newbie right out of the gate. I have to say, I took a moment to note the statement. It’s not everday you feel like that at work in your first year of teaching. And during that one small moment of satisfaction it dawned on me how I’ve managed to stay afloat in the adult world. The secret lies in these six words:

Fake it ‘til you make it.

 You’ve heard it before, but it is the single most helpful phrase to shake off those I’m-an-inadequate-fresh-piece-of-meat-who-has-no-clue-how-to-function-in-the-real-world blues. It’s kind of been my mantra since August 1st, when I, who had no business educating in the neediest of school districts in the country, was in charge of the 2nd-grade-fates of 23 children. I had never been in an education class, let alone did I know what a 7-year-old even looked like. I didn’t know what “best practices” were for teaching and I had no freaking CLUE what RTI or IEP or PLC meant. But if I could give any advice to fresh graduates or young adults who feel like they’re in over their heads in the working world, I’m telling you to just go ahead and fake it.

Start telling yourself that you are competent, successful, and independent, and you will start to become those things. The famous George Costanza once said, “It’s not a lie if you believe it,” and to be honest I’m starting to think there’s more wisdom there than I initially thought.

Believe all the things you want to believe about yourself. Need to go to church alone for the first time? Just believe that that’s what normal people do and march right up that aisle with Starbucks in tow. Have no clue what the educational term your advisor just used in an email actually means? Google it and reply as if you knew all along. Need to navigate a weird new city with psycho drivers? Simply believe you can merge with the best of them, check the mirrors often, hang on tight, and go to town up that freeway. Afraid to walk up the steps to your apartment by yourself? Believe you are a badass girl, check up and down the street, ready the keys between your knuckles just in case, and get inside without a sweat. Not sure what is going on at work? Believe that you are one of the most competent people in the room and present yourself that way. Stay engaged, take notes, dress more professionally than you should, participate when you can at staff meetings, and be a positive energy in the room – don’t be the new girl cowering shyly in the corner. This sounds so silly; it’s an odd idea to take extra care to go at the everyday things of life with an intentional gusto, but it works. It starts to rub off on your subconscious and you start to actually become a brave, smart, independent person.

My best days of teaching are those days when I believe I’m a good teacher. My best experiences with behavior management are when I make it clear to my kids that I am an adult who will not back down.

My most fun social gatherings with new friends happen when I believe I’m a fun person whom people will like.

 My most successful days of grad school are those when I believe I’m an energetic person after a long day of teaching, ready to learn something cool and new. They’re the days when I’m highlighting, note-taking, raising my hand, and forcing myself to nod my head.

 If you go through the motions of a confident person, you start to be that confident person. The more adults I meet in this work world, the more I realize we’re all the insecure 22-year-olds at heart; it’s not just you and me. This year I’ve seen 56-year-old professors get completely flustered in front of a classroom only to have everyone take a 20 minute break, I’ve seen school leaders break down into tears because of stress from district pressures, and I’ve seen coworkers say how they feel left out of the social scene at work. We’re all fighting feelings of inadequacy. Some people have just mastered the art of believing that they can. And so they can.

Believe me, for every one day I feel like an actual adult, there are seven others where I feel like a complete loser. I recently just wrote about the necessity to be real about your struggles and your difficult days. You need not always be an impenetrable wall of confident thinking and optimism. I just have found that, when put in sink-or-swim scenarios (and I can quite confidently say that was my scenario this past year), turn to confidence before you turn to cowardice.

This year has taught me that when they throw you in the pool before you learn how to tread water, tell yourself to swim, no, COMMAND yourself to swim, and you WILL. 

 Just don’t tell anyone you still need your rubber-ducky-arm-floaties to do it.

Beeeeeee Yourself

(The title was meant to harken back to my Disney days. Oh wait...I still am in my Disney days. Either way, click the link and you'll find one of my favorite scenes of all time.)

"You DOIN' too much!"

That means that you're trying too hard. My second graders say that to each other when they need to settle down. When they need to stop trying to get attention by doing what they think is cool. To give you a frame of reference, a perfect example is my student named M. M takes any opportunity to yell gospel music, break into the MC hammer dance, scream, throw a fit, steal things, throw things, whatever it may be, in order to get the spotlight. He is a happy kid and gets along with others, but he just needs to feel that approval from others in the form of being the performer. He's a crowd pleaser by nature (I know how he feels). But my one girl, T, tells it like it is. She calls him out every time when he is being ridiculous and trying too hard. She throws up her hands and says, "M! You DOIN' too much!" T is on to something here. My children are wise beyond their 7 years. It's something that I'm still trying to get straight myself. They have taught me this lesson:

Be yourself. 

Stop trying too hard. Stop busying yourself with impressing everyone. The best attention you can get does not come from being a pleaser but comes from being yourself. I come from a family of people who are very good at being themselves. To be a Gesch means something very particular to a lot of folks because we are a family full of people who are unashamedly weird, smart, talkative, and eccentric. And they live it out on a daily basis, whether it is popular or not. My second graders have this same sense of self. They are loud, emotional, impulsive, happy, sassy, and confident. I think it's all in the secret of being real with yourself and knowing who you are. Find that one thing that makes you YOU and DO THAT on a daily basis. I'm not speaking in terms of a career or job or calling as many people from my church say, but I'm talking about your YOU-ness. Your personality. Your vibe. Everyone's got their own stamp. Their own flavor. Are you sarcastic, whimsical, unconventional, loud, understated, or offbeat? Be those things. Are you weird? BE WEIRD.

I was addicted to Calvin and Hobbes from 2nd-8th grade. One of the things that
always drew me to love Calvin's character is that he is always completely himself. 

It's obvious when you try too hard to deny your own weirdness or other flavors; it's clear when you try to make your brand of YOU fit into someone else's. I think girls in particular (maybe guys are too...I just don't understand their brains to be honest) are prone to this for some reason, myself certainly included. I know a girl who so painfully cares about talking and acting cool to adapt to the particular party, people, wedding, or workplace that she finds herself around. A lot of people do this. These are the kind of people who all dress alike, talk alike, and really want the whole world to know on a daily basis what they are saying and wearing so we can all be jealous of them on twittagrambooktrest (In case you're wondering, that's the combination of twitter, instagram, facebook, and pinterest that I think will happen when they all merge to form one mega time-sucking site to consolidate our attention in one place. You heard it here first). Then, people who check these things are supposed to believe that this is "normal" and be jealous. That works for the short term popularity boost, but in the long term I think we can all agree that just totally isn't cool. Or interesting. At all. Who wants that? And how exhausting for people to try that hard? I just want to say: "Hey. You. You DOIN' too much. Cut it out." And let me say, I am totally guilty of this. I love social media too much and love connecting to people out there who are doing interesting things with their lives. I always have to check myself to make sure the things I do are out of the joy of making connections and not out of the thrill of seeking approval, as is the pitfall of all this social media stuff. This is why my second graders are so good for me in ways like this. 

Ellen Page. A celebrity very good, in my opinion, at being herself in a world were most people aren't. 

When they start to walk, talk, and do things like themselves, that's when people become cool. I think I'm getting a little bit better at this as I get older and out of the high school and college contexts. Or at least I'm trying to bet better at this; I'm trying to find my voice and embrace it. One of the perfect examples of this is my friend Ann Marie. The girl is so gorgeous and could very easily play into that "stupid-hot-chick" thing if she wanted to, the way that so many pretty people do. But instead, she unashamedly loves to go fishing, works her tail off for her masters degree, fixates on random foods (Salty Stix all through high school!), has no concern over climbing up a social ladder, constantly engages in extremely intelligent conversation, and is weird and silly all at the same time. To me, that's cool. And you know what? I'm an optimistic, sarcastic, smart, loving, adventurous, and extroverted person. That's who I am, and that's how I think I'll always be. The hip apathetic-laid-back-super-chill-understated thing just won't ever totally be me. If it is you, that's great! Then you do that thing, and I'll do my thing. I think one of the biggest compliments someone could give me as I grow up and do this whole adult-life thing would be to tell me that I'm very Anna-y these days, that I'm really myself. I'm always in a struggle to just embrace who I am and being THAT to the best of my ability. As I keep working on it, I hope you do too. Find your brand of weird and make it cool. Find the things that make you YOU and do them (this blog is one of my "things"). Set yourself free from figuring out what people want, relax, and beee yourself. Quit doin' too much. 

Transition

This post might seem a tad melancholy, and it is a little bit, but is not meant to be completely that way. Just more reflective. Today was spent going over lots of HR information, e-mailing with Teach For America AND Dominican University people about my licensing classes, and perplexing over how to set up my classroom with my co-teacher. It's that third thing that made me kind of do a double-take of my own self today.

I did a double-take because there I was, in a classroom with my co-teacher, who is extremely professional and good at what she does, and I felt like a big faker. Like I didn't have what it takes and that I couldn't shoulder my half of the work in making this first grade classroom a successful place. Sometimes I feel like a faker in this whole post-grad world in general. I feel like I'm actually still 14 years old and just masquerading as an adult. In this new apartment, driving my Volkswagen down new streets, attending new churches, and starting a new job. I feel like I have to overcompensate sometimes and be all, "Yeah! I'm totally great and I'm loving it and I'm really good at what I do and I'm on this adventure that is exciting and cool!" While all of those feelings are true sometimes, sometimes they're not. Sometimes I'm tired and feeling sick from 4 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel inadequate beyond measure. Sometimes I hate that I can't park wherever the heck I want to park. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't just called it a night on this whole Chicago thing and thrown in the towel. Sometimes I wonder if I'll be good at this teacher thing at all. Or good at this being-an-adult thing at all. I think that's the biggest one that weighs on me. 

But there are other times too. It's all mixed up, really. There are other times where I feel great about who I am and what I'm doing. 

Today during our HR session all the new hires were together so we had to introduce ourselves, where we are from, and something that we are proud of. I had a moment of happiness when I had to think of all the things I'm proud of because I have many. I'm proud of graduating college. I'm proud of my English degree. I'm proud of being accepted into Teach For America and being hired by a charter school right after graduation. I'm proud of my friends. I'm really proud of my family. I'm proud of the people I love. I'm proud of how I put myself out there with people, even if it's gotten me hurt from time to time. I'm proud of being hurt by others and still being optimistic anyway. I'm proud of my sixth grade summer-schoolers. I'm proud of being a small-town midwestern girl. I'm proud of my faith. I'm proud of moving to a new city by myself and starting adulthood this year. 

Maybe that's how it's supposed to be in those transition times. The good and the bad stuff. The doubts that you have and the...we'll call them the prouds that you have. I'm still strapped for cash and racking up quite the debt with the Bank of Brian and Kathy. I'm still really scared when I think of my lack of experience at my job. And I'm still a little overwhelmed when I feel like I'm going through this alone. But I'm also hopeful, excited, and proud too. Maybe I have to find that balance between being proud of who I am and what I can do while also using my lack of experience as a motivator to work my tail off to try and try and try until I get things right. 

I know eventually I'll get some things right. I know that every truly good thing comes with a price. And I know that every time I grow or get something to work out, it hurts a little (even a lot) at first on the way to get there. And I know, parking tickets and rent checks in tow, everything will work out in the end. At least that's what I believe. So with that, right now I'm going to live in the tension between the doubts and the prouds and work as hard as I can to make them even out. 

Oops.

So today we started Institute! Ow oww! There was a LOT of information, a LOT of acronyms, and a LOT of sweating. Oh my goodness people I can't even begin to think how much that sweat will exponentially increase when I'm in a non-air-conditioned CPS classroom whilst nervously teaching reading and writing to sixth graders. But in case you needed a good laugh today, here's a story that should make you happy. Or at least feel good about yourself that you're a more competent human being than Anna Gesch. I live to please.

Backstory: We had sessions today from very early on with no real breaks. My bus left at 7:00, I woke up at 5:15, and I kind of ran around all morning until I got on the bus. Forgot to pee. Seems like a minor detail, but it isn't. It's important. I figured, "Meh, I'll just go sometime at the school site where we are getting trained." Dumb George Michael! (Arrested Development reference yet again.)

Real story: I'm all decked out in my "professional dress" (AKA a t-shirt tucked into a black skirt), and listening intently through all the session lessons for the morning. We talked about the racial landscape of Chicago, discussed who we are and why we are here as corps members, and learned about the TFA staff who is training us. We broke into teams of four that will be leading a classroom for summer school (I and another guy are teaching the language arts portion of our classroom! High five for avoiding the math content!). So basically, a lot of stuff was going on. We're about three hours into the day when we finally took a five minute break. All of a sudden, I realized...I am going to pee my pants if I don't haul potatoes over to the bathroom. So I awkwardly walk like a hunchback out of the room for the break and look for the bathroom. I follow a chick down a hallway who looks like she knows what she's doing (she was wearing a blazer after all) and hop into a bathroom and then a stall and successfully avoid peeing myself. Good work Anna, gold star for you. I'm about to leave the stall when I hear someone whistling outside of my stall. Then I obviously hear that the person is peeing. But the person never went into a stall. This perplexed me. I had a real moment where I considered the possibility of someone peeing in the sink for some reason. Why would they do that, I thought...that is GROSS. Then I realized they were not in fact peeing in the sink, but peeing in the urinal. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I, a college graduate, did not realize I was using the Men's Bathroom. So here I am locked inside of the stall with a guy whistling outside as he takes his sweet time on his pee break. I knew I had to act fast. I couldn't be THAT KID who peed in the Men's Bathroom, right? Plus if I didn't make a run for it, it was only a matter of time before my purple flats peeking below the stall would give me away. So I unlatched the lock, silently made a dash at the speed of light past the unsuspecting urinator who was whistling away at the wall, and caught my breath behind the door. I then went all James Bond on the place and snuck around two more doors and corners before naturally pacing myself into the hallway and back in the room. 

Moral of the story: Don't wait to pee. You will regret it. Lesson learned. 

Risk

No, not the board game. Although I have spent many Christmas/New Year holidays with our family friends playing the game of strategic conquest (when you get two older brothers and their friends together, you're not playing Boggle, I'll tell you that much). And if you're any kind of Seinfeld fan at all, you already love this scene from the label maker episode. "The Ukraine is weak!" 

For this post I'm thinking of risk more in terms of putting yourself out there. In terms of exposing yourself to possible downfall or heartbreak or letdown or danger. This kind of risk is not a game...real people are involved in this one.

This idea of risk started to bounce around in my head ever since my brother Alex, who is a lawyer, brought up the concept of "Assumption of Risk" a long time ago. Maybe it was his first year of law school, I don't know, but it stuck with me. Apparently it was in a torts class (I guess that's a category of laws, but to me it sounds more like dessert) and basically you can cite "Assumption of Risk" as a possible defense to not get the pants sued off of you. Hopefully I'm understanding it correctly. For example, if you're playing a soccer game, someone slide tackles you, and you tear your ACL, the slide-tackler does not have a responsibility to pay for your medical bills. By suiting up in that soccer jersey and stepping on the field, you assumed that playing the game involves a certain level of risk. And since you love the game, you happily accepted and played in spite of that risk. You take responsibility for the fact that it's your own fault for joining in if you get hurt during the normal play of the game.

I also think of this with playgrounds. By climbing up on those monkey bars, you are taking on that Assumption of Risk. You might fall (and dang does hitting those wood chips below ever hurt!) but you also might finally conquer that farmer's flip you've been perfecting for your entire kindergarten career.

People are like monkey bars. You need to acknowledge the Assumption of Risk when it comes to people. Anytime you have a friendship, relationship, or interaction with another human being, you're risking something. The closer you get, the more you jeopardize in the process. The possibilities for love and friendship are worth it, and so most of us see fit to take that risk. But what happens when it all blows up? We all know the feeling of free-falling to a thud on the ground below the monkey bars, only to have the wind knocked out of us once we get there. It's not pleasant. People can hurt. People can leave you gasping for air. When that initial impact passes, do you yell curses up at the monkey bars? No. You pick yourself up, walk it off, and try that farmer's flip again. When you open yourself up to people, you take that risk. It's not anyone's fault, it's just never a sure thing with people. You give them the power to knock the wind right out of you. Hey, remember that you can do the same hurt to others when they trust you! But the beauty of it all is that next time it might not end up that way. You can learn from every single fall and every single scrape and bruise those wood chips leave on your knees. You risked it, it didn't work out as you'd planned, but you're still going forward better, smarter, and readier than before.

One of my all-time favorite literary characters is a sad little guy named J Alfred Prufrock. T.S. Eliot wrote a whole poem from his sad little perspective. J Alfred is so consumed with his fear of taking risks that he is completely paralyzed. He says he measures his life in coffee spoons and obsesses over the question: "Do I dare eat a peach?" Dude, when you start to have an existential crisis over fruit, you know you need to lighten up.

What I'm trying to say here is that we can't end up like my friend J. Alfred Prufrock. I can't sit on the sidelines of friendships and relationships for fear of getting burned or getting my feelings hurt. We can't sit on the grass while the rest of the world is playing on the jungle gym. I read somewhere that "life is between the trapeze bars," that in order to really live, you have to risk a little too. I'd rather have my life measured in jumps and falls than in coffee spoons. Safe is nice, but safe can become a crutch.

I'm working on facing those monkey bars again. The world is just too full of interesting people and exciting opportunities to not climb back up that ladder. And if I do say so myself, I can execute an outstanding farmer's flip.

Nocturnal

I'm sort of proving my own point by writing this post. It is 12:33 AM and I decided to pick up my lappy and write a nice little blog post. Stupid George Michael! (That was for all you Arrested Development fans out there.)

Let's start out by saying I don't live up to my name very well. Having Gesch as a last name carries a lot of implications. I think very good and redeeming implications for the most part. We're a German bunch that tends to be very punctual, practical,  talkative, and disciplined. There also seems to be an early bird gene that has been associated with my last name. Probably goes along with that whole "Let's be eighty hours early to everything" deal my family has going on. Well, I'm not sure what happened there, but my early bird gene was bullied to death by the night owl gene and that was that. That poor bird was KO-ed in the first round and never had a chance. Those dueling birds and owls, it can get dangerous I tell you. I've been the last one awake at every sleepover as a child, pushing my bedtime back to do one more thing, and sleeping through early alarms with the best of them since 1989. My natural tendency to be awake at night, paired with my sleep habits in the past four years at college have set me up pretty poorly for adulthood. 

Granted, I just had kind of a whirlwind and off-schedule weekend anyways. It began by celebrating my roommate Susan's bachelorette party complete with an entourage of 14 on a coach bus riding through town. SO MUCH FUN. But when that night ended at 3:30 AM, the next few days didn't really stand much of a chance. I had dinner with my babysitting family (Mel, Karley, and I have been adopted by an awesome mom of four during our time at Trinity) tonight in the Chicago area and now I am finally home again in Wisconsin, watching the replay of today's Jeopardy episode. 

To me, the perfect schedule would involve waking up at 9:00 AM, taking a three hour nap beginning at 2:00 PM, waking up at 5:00 PM and going to sleep again for the night at 3:00 AM. Rinse and Repeat. Wait a minute...that is my EXACT schedule from my semester in Spain! Maybe it's a sign I need to go back. (Yep. It is.) Plus, night owls have more fun! Most fun things happen at night anyways! And who wants to wake up at 5:00 AM with a raspy voice all morning? (Maybe this is my personal problem; my voice doesn't get back to normal until after noon. Before that I sound like Chuck the neighborhood bus driver.) But alas, the early birds have that whole "I'm a real responsible human being" aspect that is oh so valuable in this world of employment I'm learning actually does exist. 

The night owl thing may work out in the dream world of studenthood in Sevilla, but does NOT work out too well in the real world where you want to be a healthy, productive adult who contributes positive things to society. Especially not for a teacher. Institute for Teach for America is looming on the horizon with a rigorous (early!) schedule, followed by the insanity that will be my first year of teaching and I need to start getting with it. I must man up (maybe I should say woman up?) and realize that all of my goals: being healthy, working hard, being great at my job, being responsible with my spiritual life and friendships, all could be greatly improved by normal sleeping schedules. These next few months will take serious discipline from me to change this routine. Hopefully you'll see more posts from 6:00 AM instead of 1:00 AM. You can help keep me accountable.

Now, before bed, let's read a few more chapters in my book, browse Pinterest for awhile, and re-do my nail polish. 

Perspective

Graduation has passed, and life is moving on along. Between my full-time job of official American Idol and Dancing With the Stars commentator with my parents (don't you dare judge me), I am beginning to actually check things off the list in preparation for my job at a charter school and Teach For America. I've been neglecting THE LIST for some time now, and it needed to be addressed now that finals are through.

But a rabbit trail first. Okay. Sue me if you disagree, whatever. But is it just me or did American Idol get way softer? All the judges are big gummy teddy bears and never say anything remotely critical other than, "Yo dawg, for me...it was aiggght." Since when did RANDY become the BAD GUY? That is the worst they can come up with. What happened to the days of Simon bringing a girl to tears for hitting a wrong note, then crossing his arms over his skin-tight t-shirt in disgust at her emotional weakness? In tonight's episode I heard like eighty flat pitches and a bunch of lyric mess-ups and nothing. Nada. Zip. All sunshine and happiness from the panel of judges. Obviously, Steven Tyler has no idea what's going on around him anyway. But Randy and J-Lo, I'm disappointed! I mean, I'm all about positivity, but let's be honest when that chick doesn't hit her notes! It's okay to be honest! Okay, okay. I get it. Too much reality television for Anna. I need to find a book. 

Back to THE LIST of shtuff. (I like to say it shtuff...sounds more Yiddish to me. Why that matters to a non-Jew like myself? Not sure.) There is THE LIST of to-do items. I've dedicated myself to jumping through these flaming hoops with thorough, punctual efforts. I take great pride in jumping through said hoops with little complaint. But. Then yesterday happened. I hit a wall.

For a solid 5 hours straight, I worked through financial plans, background checks, fingerprinting, online HR websites that malfunctioned for the 6th time, exchanging long e-mails with Frank from customer support at said HR website, HMOs, PPOs, retirement plans, apartment searching, roommate hunting (....anyone? anyone? Bueller?), transcript ordering, e-mail responding, and hair-ripping-outing.

Blech. I was ready to barf. Then it turned out that I had to spend today driving 2.5 hours each way to Chicago for a 15 minute meeting with a guy who took my fingerprints.

But. Alas. This is life. 

Life is annoying sometimes. Life is messy. Life puts you through four different voicemail systems and hangs up on you at the end of the 20-minute muzak track. Life makes you navigate through construction zones to find no-tow parking lots in the city. Life makes you wait in line at the DMV. Life has details that you just need to man up and figure out. Life is full of this stuff (shtuff, if you will). And it is only the beginning for me, especially as a newbie in both the adult world and education world. I've thought about how I got overwhelmed yesterday morning since it happened and got sort of disappointed in myself for getting so frustrated at the annoying details. I've come up with two solutions for myself, and they've worked well for me in the last 48 hours.

Solution 1: GO TO SLEEP.

My favorite activity, ever. This is always helpful. After sleeping on anything I have more clarity. It's great to get distance from whatever you're contemplating in order to sort it out. Sleep has a beautiful way of taking the edge off of angry arguments, tedious bureaucracies, and stressful workloads. It just helps. If sleep is not an option, of course, I have another for you.

Solution 2: GET PERSPECTIVE.

Take one minute. One single minute. Back it up. And remember why you are doing what you are doing. Why you are living your life and who you are living it for. I did this today whilst stuck in traffic. It was wonderful. Why am I running around like a crazy zombie trying to get fingerprints, apartments, budgets, credit cards, direct deposit, benefit packages, and eight million e-mails all accomplished? Because I am blessed to have a job that will teach me not only about myself and others but how I can use my abilities to love and help a broken world. Simple as that. When I remember that, I get perspective. I take one minute to remember WHY the heck I'm doing what I'm doing, and it's all a whole lot simpler. And happier. Of course living in the moment is wonderful (here is a big reason why), but the big-picture perspective is necessary for those individual moments to be enjoyed. In order to not get bogged down and drown in the details, you need to always stay afloat on your noodle of perspective. (See how I worked that metaphor in there? Yeah, I have a Bachelor's in English. That's what I'm using it for.) That one minute of perspective changed my attitude for the next few hours.

I laughed at my laptop when I read this. What great perspective. 

Obviously, nobody lives stress-free. This stuff happens. But I want to do my best to lead a life of joy, even in the midst of the little crap that I'm tempted to allow to bother me. And when all else fails, of course, I think I'll just take a nap. 

All the time?

Last week was Grandparent's Day. No, I'm not in second grade, I do actually attend Trinity Christian College, an institution of higher learning, and yes, we have Grandparent's Day. WHAT ABOUT IT, HUH?! (Sorry, I'm defensive of our little traditions, as silly as they seem to most 'normal' people.) My two cousins and I got to spend a few hours with my mom's mother, who is a wonderful person. They had a speaker at one point during the program who chose a topic that got me thinking. She was saying that times don't have to be easy in order for them to be good.

The gray haired audience had the benefit of lots of years of evidence to attest to her message. They can look back and see how everything shakes out for their ultimate good. Even my 45-year-old dad (Okay he's not that age by any means, but I'm trying to help a brotha out) told me last weekend that he has enough experience with hindsight to see this truth. The truth of how there isn't a meaningless rhythm to life; how there is a purpose behind all of those weird events that leave us asking, What on earth is going to happen to me?

I've been pondering this idea for awhile. Honestly, it's because things have been going my way for the most part in the past month or so - particularly when it comes to my future plans. Doors have been opened and things have fallen into place like I can't even believe. I truly could not have planned it better myself. (Ha, I would probably have messed it up if it were.) I can fill you in on these details soon and very soon. (!!!)

SO. Lately I've been thinking, "Wow, I am pretty blessed. Life is good. God is good." 

But aren't those things always good? What a stupid thing to assume that all of a sudden these things started to be good! Was life no good when I was having an off day? Was life not worth living in January when I had a minor breakdown every five minutes at each glance at my planner's revelation that "GRADUATION" was penciled in and hurling at me like a freight train? Was God no good when people asked, "What are you considering for a career path?" and I coped by making some stupid joke about plans to open a grammar store with my English major? (I forget who I stole that joke from, but it's worth a laugh every time. Well I laugh at it. Therefore, it's funny.) Was God not good when I saw all those diamond ring pictures pop up on facebook and my fourth finger on my left hand was (and still is - don't get any ideas pal!) glaringly sans adornment? Was I not blessed when I felt confused about my future and where I was meant to be for the next little segment of my life?

The answer to all of these, of course, is no. 

I have always been blessed, life is always good, and God is always good. I have a theory that God gets sick of my aforementioned meltdowns and sometimes has to smack me over the head with good stuff just to make me shut up with all the complaints. As much experience as I have with trying to remind toddlers and little kids to stop whining, I'm not such a great role model in that department myself. Oops. 

What changes, then, is not the blessings, life, or God, but me. Or I guess, more specifically, my perspective. Too often we (well at least I do) let the junk going on around us decide whether or not things are good. God was still perfectly good on the day my Grandma died last year. Life was still good when I felt completely scared and alone that first week in Spain. I'm still blessed beyond comparison when friendships are tarnished, promises are broken, and plans don't work out. Yet I'm still like the whiny 3-year-old who can only see four inches in front of her own shoes. Here's the  problem with this: when I start qualifying the goodness of my life, blessings, and God, it makes me the one who determines all this stuff. It makes me the center of attention. And it makes me the one in charge of making it all happen. But I don't want to make it happen. I can't make it happen. Not on my own. 

So, if you ask me if God is good all the time, I will tell you yes. Because in the highs and lows, he doesn't change. The goodness of this life we live doesn't waver. 

And that, to me, makes it worth living, and living well. 

Get On My Level

For those of you not running the streets with myself and all the youths (to be read as Schmidt would read it), the title of this post corresponds to what I would say to you if you need to step it up. For example, if we're racing bigwheels in 1996 up the driveway and I beat you every time, I would now have license to yell "Get on my level!!" to you in a taunt of my superiority. Now that you know what it means, I should let you know that it has nothing to do with the topic of my post. Oops. But this post does have a lot to do with levels. 

I'm sitting in beautiful Cedar Grove, Wisconsin for Easter weekend for a short little calm before the storm. This is our last break before a whirlwind five weeks of classes, interviews, packing, planning, exams, and goodbyes. It's coming. Graduation. A lot of countdowns have been popping up. However many days everyone has until ________. You fill in the blank. Graduation Day, Wedding Day, First Day on the Job, Baby's Due Date, Vacation, even little weeklong countdowns to Friday Night, you name it. A lot of people are at the thresholds of significant life stages right now.

The pic is borrowed from one of my favorite blogs these days. Check it out.

We do these countdowns because we always are looking ahead to the next life level. Are you single? Well you must be itching to get into a relationship. Are you dating? Well then you OBVIOUSLY are considering caterers for your upcoming wedding. Married? When are the kids coming? Working? When does the big promotion come along? While planning and foresight is a necessary part of living a responsible life, maybe we could ease up a bit on the countdowns. There's too much pressure to rush forward for some sort of delusional idea that we're all in a race to the finish. What we don't talk about is that they don't hand you a trophy when you "win."

I do it too. I had my own countdown in Spain last spring. I kept track of how many more days I had left in Sevilla. I viewed it in different ways: on homesick days the countdown was a glimmer of hope to remind me that family/friends were waiting back home, on I-love-my-life days it was a reminder to cherish every second and squeeze every bit of Spanish goodness out of my time in my city. While I had fun tracking my time in Spain, maybe it wasn't such a great idea to check that number every day. It made me fixate on May 5th, 2011, my return day, all too much. Each and every day in Spain had a huge value to me, but my countdown kept me focusing on one of the many.

When you finally reach the destination of your countdown, you can always start the next. From birth until death, you will have the next life level to look forward to. But what we forget sometimes is that there are wonderful things about every stage. There are things that you might miss. After you cease to be single, you won't be able to make big choices independent of considering a significant other. After you have kids, you will never be able to have the freedom to spend money/travel/chill out with your spouse free from parenting responsibilities. After you graduate, you'll never have the luxury of free time between classes and a large group of people constantly around with whom you can pull shenanigans. The list goes on.

I could use a lesson in living within the day I'm in right now. As a compulsive lister, planner, and tell-me-what-is-going-to-happen type, I often look back and see how I missed exciting, wonderful things that were going on in every stage. The pace of my timeline of life has nothing to do with catching up or beating anyone else to the punch. It's a constant effort to live in the tension between being aware of the long-term, while always savoring the right now.

I think, now, more than ever, I have to look at where I'm standing and appreciate it for all it's worth. No need for jumping to the next level before its time. To quote a wise, wise soul: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." 

Three Little Words

Today started like any Tuesday. I woke up after too few hours of sleep, crammed in some homework before class, ate breakfast, and got ready. I sat down in my English 375 (Advanced Writing) class four minutes before its 9:30 start. Today was a pretty normal day of class, but there was an exceptional lesson learned within the middle of it that made it memorable for me. We were talking about writing tips for our upcoming essays and how basic choices of verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives strengthen our paper. We got to the slide on nouns and said that generally, the more specific the concrete noun, the better (Daisies instead of flowers, Big Mac instead of hamburger, you get it). Then we got to this:

Abstract nouns are hardest to use well. Like love. Our use of love tends to be lazy. 

Well. I know that the sentence was concerning our usage of "love" in what we write, but of course my mind started to wander. I thought that sentence perfectly describes our (or at least my) everyday life. Love is hard to use well. 

I am guilty as charged. I say "I love you Mom and Dad," in one breath and then turn around to say "Ohemgoodness I love that TV show!" in the next. I just like to love things, so I will admit my contribution to cheapening the word. But I'm not the only one guilty here, people. Now I've never said those words to someone in THE BIG WAY, but how many people have you seen say, "I LOVE YOU AHHH" all over Facebook to their significant other and then after the breakup schmear (yes I consider that to be a real word) their ex any chance they get? Or friends who say "I love you and don't know what I'd do without you!" and two months later could not care less about the well-being of that same person. Obviously hurt feelings happen and emotions run high in those situations initially, but I think with time, eventually, you have to think: 

Hey. I told that person those three little words at one point. And that wasn't just a flaky statement, that was a promise. 

I think when you say those words to someone, whether that be your boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, brother, sister, friend, roommates, teammate, or dog (haha), you are making a promise. Easy to say, hard to do. You are promising, "I'm going to always be patient with you!" and "I won't get jealous of you, won't constantly try to one-up you, and will never think of myself as more important than you!" Yikes. Those are big promises, and that's only the beginning. With those words you're also promising:

"I won't be rude to you."

"I won't expect anything back for stuff I do for you."

"I won't jump to angry conclusions with you."

"I won't keep track of stuff that you do wrong. I'll forgive you every time." 

"I'll tell you the truth and be honest with you."

"I'll protect you and your reputation when I talk to you and about you."

"I'll trust you, and trust that God has a plan for you."

"I will hope for the best for you, and always assume the best about you."

"I will always hang in there with you, and I'm always on your side." 

"I won't ever fail you. You can count on me."

Wait. So it doesn't mean "I love you, except when you mess up and I don't feel like acting like it anymore." And it doesn't mean "I love you, but when you annoy me I reserve the right to be rude and angry at your stupid habits." Shoooooot. That makes it a whole lot harder. 

But as we know, love is a hard word to use well. 

Maybe we should be more careful about using love well even though, as my professor highlighted and I've discovered, it is an arduous job. It's difficult. But I think if we can even start to chip away at living up to that list, when we stop using love in a lazy way, we start to reflect the one who loves us perfectly. And that makes it worth it. 

Because while love is a difficult noun to use well, it's the greatest noun of them all.

Make My Day

Anyone else get the reference from Technotronic? Hello 1990!

Today was a rainy, dreary, gray day. Things just weren't going in the Anna Gesch kind of way. I wasn't feeling the vibe of February 21, 2012. Hey, it happens to us all, right? So I did what every logical person would do to combat the gray day blues: Go to Starbucks. I get so much homework done there that I'm now wondering why I don't go there everyday. Anyway, the remedy worked. And in a bigger way than I thought. This trip to Starbucks reaffirmed my faith in human beings. (Okay not THAT dramatic of a Starbucks experience, but still. I'm trying to hook you into the story here so cut me some slack.)

My matching hot chocolates

It all started after lunch when I pack-muled my way into Starbucks with all my books, backpack, purse, laptop, and big puffy coat in tow.  I ordered the usual tall hot chocolate, and clumsily threw all my cargo on a chair. After about 15 minutes, I finally got organized, settled in, and got to work, sipping on my chocolate goodness. My mood was already on the mend. I had sugar in my system along with a productive three hour homework session in full swing.

At about 4:15, I saw the Starbucks worker guy (I believe that's his official title) walking up to me saying something and I was a little worried. I took off my headphones and said, "I'm sorry, could you repeat what you just said?", secretly expecting him to ask me to leave and stop hogging all the mini tables in my corner of the coffee shop.

Instead, he handed me a new cup and said, "Hey, here's another hot chocolate, on us. You've been here awhile so I figured you needed another boost."

Oh my goodness. My jaw could have hit the ground. All I could say was, "You made my day!" in an obnoxiously loud, abrupt, and awkward fashion. This teeny tiny gesture by a complete stranger absolutely changed my disposition in a matter of 4 seconds. He really did make my day. Which is sort of a weird term, to make one's day, but that's what happened. My day was made. That's just what you say.

While I sat there, headphones back on, reflecting on the goodness of a person I don't even know, it made me realize two things: First, while I know everyone has that whole total depravity thing going on, it is pretty special to be present for a moment when a person shows grace to another. Second, it is REALLY easy to make someone's day.

It was a reminder to me that everyone has this potential to do so much good for others. Just think of the possibilities! Not only for strangers, like this guy did, but even also for people you already know and love! I realized that I could go forth and make SO many days. For my dad, all it takes is saying I love him and singing an embarrassing song on a voicemail. For my classmate, all it takes is quickly asking how her mom is doing after a long and tricky sickness. For my roommate Lauren, all it takes is posting a picture of a furry little kitten on her Facebook wall. Karley makes my days on a regular basis by leaving me the leftover frosting from her many baking endeavors. That's it. So simple. All these things take just a few seconds and BAM. You've just made someone's day.

That's taking 4 seconds of your time to improve the following 86,400 seconds for someone else. I'm not the most savvy financial analyst out there, but I'd say that's got to be the best return on an investment, ever. And thanks to the investment of some Starbucks worker out there in the universe, February 21, 2012 turned into an Anna Gesch kind of day after all.

Learning Popportunities

Who said that everything on the radio these days is trash? (Well, for one, my own mother.) But I have taken it upon myself to swoop in and stand up for that mainstream pop music that everyone so loves to demonize. (Kudos to you if you immediately thought of this song after that sentence.) In fact, on my last car ride I learned a lot of edifying lessons from pop music.

The ride was about 30-ish minutes and I decided to listen to the words and remember the songs from the ride. Now, I understand that these radio stations play the same 12 songs over and over again so much so that you tend to cry out in anger at the universe. I feel your pain, sister. Nobody likes beating a dead horse. But - who would've thought - hidden within all that overplayed nonsense are some real gems. I love these messages that are playing daily in your cars, kitchens, and orthodontist offices nationwide.

(thanks, Flickr!)

1. "People throw rocks at things that shine."

This is from Taylor Swift's "Ours," and definitely talks about her and her latest (I mean can we talk about how many 2-week relationships this chick has?) boyfriend. But I see it as a general lesson for everyone. I think someone once said it best when they said: Hatas gonna hate. Profound, I know. Basically, when you do good things, when you are successful, and when you are happy, people will try to drag you down just because they can. I realize that the logic doesn't make sense, but there are people who spend a lot of time throwing these rocks. Don't worry about them. Live your life and never apologize or feel bad for having joyous things going on within it.

2. "We go together like peanuts and paydays and Marley and reggae."

This line in Colbie Caillat's "Brighter Than the Sun" just made me think of all you people who I love to be around. It's great when you find people who jive with your style, or as Forrest Gump would say, those who go together with you like peas and carrots. That's something to celebrate. While I love me some Colbie, I do stand firm on the fact that she has poor taste in candy bars. Paydays?! Seriously? Gimme some 3 Musketeers, Butterfingers, Crunch, anything. Even a peanut butter cup for heaven's sake.

3. "Gotta love the life that we livin'"

This is from Flo-Rida's latest song "Good Feeling" that combines retro recordings with his own rap verses. But in all honesty, we really do have to love life. Why live it if you don't love it?! Flo-Rida, I concur.

4. "Oh, oh I know the sun must set to rise."

Leave it to Coldplay to get us thinking deep thoughts on the freeway. This is from their song "Paradise" and shows us a girl who doesn't have a picture perfect situation going on right now, but she keeps dreaming and looking forward to the good stuff that is on its way. Hey, if the sun is down, that means it's only going to come back up. Thanks Chris Martin. One wonders why if you are such a good songwriter, you made the choice to name your child Apple. I guess you can't get everything right.

5. "I'm sexy and I know it."

Welllllllllll. I don't have much of an argument for this one. It was the last song on my drive home (LMFAO's song named, you guessed it, "Sexy and I Know It") and kind of didn't fit in the whole untrashy/encouraging radio session. But in an effort to find something redeemable in this song, I'll say: It's good to be confident.

Plus, it successfully adds another verse to the popular song for kids: if you're sexy and you know it clap your hands! Boom.