A November Story

My story is set on a Saturday morning in November 2015.  I woke up late, because that's what Saturday mornings are for.  As I laid in bed being lazy, I got a text from my coordinator at Cincinnati State.  There was a class happening right that second and a last minute sub interpreter was needed.  Could I come ASAP?  

Of course!  

Here's what you need to know to realize how urgent this seemed to me:  The class is several hours long, and the one interpreter would have been interpreting on their own for almost an hour by the time I could get there.  It's hard to interpret a college class solo for an hour!  So I very quickly got dressed, tamed my hair, grabbed a granola bar and ran out the door, skipping most of my morning routine.  The college is close to my house, so the drive was quick.  All in all, I ran into the classroom about 40 minutes after I'd been contacted.  Pretty good, I'd say.

Near the end of class I was thinking about what a fun morning this had been, how lucky that I live so close to campus, and how much I love my job.  It just seemed like a perfect morning.  Then Rob texted me and asked when I would be home.  Miciah was at a friend's house, Rob had to leave to take Elijah to a Scouting event, and Tank had just thrown up.  Great.  It was now becoming obvious from what was happening during class that we would run over time.  This meant that I wouldn't be home before Rob had to leave.  I hated the idea of having a young, sick kid at home all alone, but it would only be a few minutes.

Finally, almost half an hour after the scheduled class time, but just a smidgen before class was done, I explained about my sick kid at home, left in a hurry and ran to my car.  When I arrived I realized I didn't have my keys.  Which is totally weird because I'm really, really anal about my keys.  When I get out of my car, I make sure that 1 - I can see my keys, 2 - I put them in the pocket they go in, and 3 - I physically touch my keys.  Levels of redundancy.  It just seems smart.  So where in the world could my keys be?

I looked inside the car.  I couldn't see them.  I backtracked.  They hadn't fallen on the ground.  They weren't in the classroom.  I thought about calling Rob and having him come unlock the car door and I could drive home, since I was just sure my keys had to be inside the car.  But Rob was now 30 minutes away and at a Scout event.  Right.  I thought about asking the student or the other interpreter for a ride home and I'd worry about the car later.  By now, they'd left, though.  Dang it!  I called Rob and asked him to come.  

Then I stood near my car in the parking garage just waiting.  About half an hour later, when Rob was just minutes away from campus, a security guard walked up to me and said, "Are you Tamra?"  

"Yes!  You must have found my keys!"  

"We did."  He handed them to me.  

"Where were they?" I was curious to know.  They MUST have just fallen out of my purse.  

He gave me a funny look.  "They were in your car.  You left it running.  With the door open."

"What?!"

"We thought maybe you'd been abducted.  Usually people don't leave their car running with the door open.  We were just about to send someone to your house to see if you were there."

How do you even respond to that?!

I then spent the rest of the day wondering what kind of IDIOT leaves their car running with the door open in a parking garage!  

...

Though it does make me feel a little better that as I've (reluctantly) told people this story, it turns out that a lot of people have a similar story.  So I'm not the only idiot.

But if you haven't done something like that, now you can feel superior.  Go ahead.  I'll give you this one.

2015, reprise

I know I just posted that I'm grateful for 2015.  And I am.  But now that 2015 is over and I no longer have to think about just surviving the year, I would like to say something out loud:

Screw you, 2015.

Okay.  Moving on.  2016, you don't have to do much to top 2015.  Pretty much, if no one in my immediate family dies, you'll be better than 2015*.  If I don't spend the entire month of November wanting to kill people / crawl in a hole and die, you'll be better than 2015.  If I don't have to deconstruct everything that makes me me, all the while wondering if my marriage is going to crumble and I'm going to lose access to my kids, you'll be better than 2015.

Though if we could keep the personal inner growth thing going, that'd be great.  We don't want to toss the baby out with the bath water, as they say.

So, welcome 2016.  Thank you for coming.



*I don't want to be unclear - no one in my immediate family died in 2015.  But leaving the Mormon church FELT like a death.  An end.  A rejection.  A deep, gut-wrenching sadness.  The only parallel I can think of is a death.

Let Your Imagination Fly

This is Elijah's PTA Reflections poem entry for the year.  The theme was Let Your Imagination Fly.  That's also the title of the poem.

Let Your Imagination Fly
by Elijah Thacker

Let your imagination fly,
Up farther than the sky,
Past all of the distractions,
and annoying contraptions.

Looking down at everything,
Seeing all the weathering,
Looking down at scarlet skies,
I can still see fireflies.

Soaring past the moon so bright,
Look from the streams of light,
Soft as lilacs on the sun,
Farther than we all can run.

Zooming from the edge of Rome,
Barely seeing the edge of home,
Going to uncertainty,
Though almost unwilling.

So that we all find,
The potential of your own mind.
Up farther than the sky,
Let your imagination fly.

Reading Goal for 2016

Read one more book than I read in 2015.  So that's 17 books.

Already 1 down.  Good start to the year!