Sakhi - Soul Friend

I went to Dogtown with my friends yesterday because I was afraid to cancel the personal day I had requested a week ago. It seemed unkind to the substitute teacher who may have been counting on that paycheck. It wasn't her fault I had crashed since then and did not feel like celebrating anything. Also, I could not be alone. 

I am not a big drinker on the best of days and usually end up throwing unreciprocated shade that no one else appreciates.

Me: Why did you just tell our Uber driver that you loved her? You do not love her.

Natalie: I do love her. She drives a Tesla.

Me: That does not mean you love her.

Cara: WE RODE IN A TESLA, BITCHES!!!

Me: You're pretty far gone, aren't you? Use "iterations" in a sentence.

Cara: The other day, there were so many iterations in my sentence.

Me: That is a terrible sentence. You are an English teacher.

Most of the time, I wish I could have a video camera so I could record everything and memorize the best lines to recount to them later. But every time I try to record my friends talking to each other in a language only they can understand, they start making sense again, and my videos just turn out dumb. So instead, I trail around after them collecting beer cans, holding doors open, and telling people to be careful.

After a whiskey and about 8 beers, Cara pointed to me and then to herself and said, "You know something? This should never have worked. Me and you. We're opposites."

"That's true," I said. 

"But," she continued, taking a drag on her cigarette, "we are friends of the soul."

"Yes. Your soul is like a butterfly. And mine is like... something sad," I replied.

"Your soul is like a grub worm," Cara nodded wisely.

"That's a terrible thing to say."

"Well, you know. It's like a grub before it becomes something beautiful," Cara replied, alternating between drinking her whiskey and a beer that had also mysteriously appeared. 

"Grub worms never become beautiful. You put them on a rock and smash them with a hammer in South Carolina. That's it. That's the extent of a grub's existence."

"No, no, like before they turn into one of your monarchs." 

"I think you are confusing two different species. I want you to remember this day when I told you that your soul was a butterfly and you told me my soul was a grub worm."

"Ok. What was the most magical part of your day, T?" she asked me as I helped her pile all the glasses onto the bar counter.

I thought. Cara can find magic in anything. Is that because she drinks more than me or because her soul is a butterfly? Or is her soul a butterfly because she drinks more than me? Or does she drink more than me because her soul is already a butterfly? Would I be a butterfly with a different tolerance level? Or does depression just mean your soul can never be a butterfly?

I realized I am never so aware of what it means to be a Virgo as I am when I am around my friends.

"I will tell you my most magical moment," Cara said as she looped her arm through mine and we started down Morganford. "It was when we willed the bagpipers into stopping right in front of us!! We wanted it so much that we willed it to happen, and then it did!!!"

"That's magic, eh?"

"Yes, that's what magic is. So what was your most magical moment of the day?"

"Maybe when I fought you for the white beads that guy threw at us?"

"Yeah, I did all the work for those beads and then you just reached up from behind me with your long yoga arms and took them out of the air and wouldn't let go. That was some good magic, too."

I want to be the type of person who sees magic in everything. I want my soul to be a butterfly instead of a grub worm. I just don't know how to get there. I don't even know if you can get there when you are this deeply depressed.

The thing about monarchs is, even the final generation in every cycle only lives 5 weeks. That's it. Five weeks to make your difference in the world. Five weeks to pollinate your flowers, fly three thousand miles, find a mate, lay some eggs. Five weeks to live until you die.

Grub worms have ten times the lifespan of a monarch. Still. If I got to choose, if it is a choice, I want my soul to be a butterfly. It feels like a shorter life is worth it if it's one where you see magic everywhere.

Satya - Truthfulness

For the last 15 years, I've been trying to teach high school English. For the last 15 years, I've failed and remained in 8th grade. I've been passed over for 7 positions in my own district alone. I've been teaching a scripted curriculum that requires zero thought or skill from the teacher. I'm bored and I'm trapped, and I've been repeatedly snubbed by the head of my department, in a way that is both humiliating and deeply troubling.

This year, I decided, no more. I changed my passwords to "ThisIsMyLastYear!" (they've since changed). Beginning in September, I created charts of any district in the area where I could reasonably go without taking an even bigger pay cut than I did last time around. Then I circled the only one that was feasible to me: Pattonville. It's the #1 most diverse district in Missouri. It's 13 minutes from my house. They posted 3 high school openings this spring. I know two of the principals in the district (although not at the school). 

And -- importantly -- it would be a $15,000 a year raise, which would mean I no longer have to work in a filthy warehouse after school just so I can afford to be a teacher. I would get to actually focus on teaching.

I didn't get it.

Correction: I didn't get any of the 3 openings. I have literally 10 years of college education. I spent hours preparing. I bought clothes in the school colors, on a principal's recommendation. I took at least 12 pages of notes. I talked to everyone I knew in the district to get references and tips. I had recommendation letters from 4 different principals and assistant principals. I printed out the state Grade Level Expectations for English and highlighted every place the 8th grade standards deviated from the 9th-10th standards so I knew exactly what I was talking about during my interview. I sent handwritten notes following up.

They had THREE openings, I knew two of the principals, and I still failed.

One of the principals who recommended me for the position said, "Well, everything happens for a reason!"

Some friends say, "It just wasn't part of God's plan!"

And I say fkkk that noise. You start working 13-hour days in a warehouse just so you can afford to keep your real job; then be forced to read lessons from a script to “stay in line” with everyone else; you spend 15 years trying to convince someone to hire you for a position you're grossly overqualified for. You try setting up payment plans for nearly every major purchase you make because your savings account is almost non-existent now.

Then get back to me on "God's plan."

I work in one of the lowest-paid districts in one of the lowest-paid states in one of the lowest-paid professions in the country. I had an opportunity -- three opportunities -- to actually teach and to get paid to teach! And I still wasn't good enough.

There are people who have suffered far worse, and I don't mean to undermine their loss or pain. But I am also desperate and defeated.

In Kate Chopin’s masterpiece, The Awakening, Edna Pontellier feels so trapped by her life that one day she walks straight out into the Gulf of Mexico and lets it swallow her whole. When I first read the book, I remember a lot of people expressing outrage that a mother would abandon her young children like that. But they didn’t get it at all. 

Edna Pontellier was a woman for whom society had carved a very narrow path. She finally got to the point where she knew she couldn't live within the confines of her own small life. She refused to.

Similarly, there’s a motif in the show Suits where Harvey asks Mike, “What do you do when someone puts a gun to your head?” Like Edna’s peers, Mike assumes that there really isn’t a choice: you do whatever the gunman says! Or in the case of most late 19th century ladies, you live a demure New Orleans life and raise your children because that’s what one does.

Edna and Harvey believed that there are other, invisible options: In Suits, “You take the gun; or you pull out a bigger one; or you call their bluff. Or one of 146 other things.” In Edna’s case, where your environment gives you no choice, you create a choice for yourself, even if it is letting the ocean swallow you instead of letting your own narrow life swallow you. 

I know in some small part of me that there are other, invisible choices, but like Mike and the ladies in Edna’s circle, I cannot see them. I’ve been trying to teach something different for 15 years now, and all I can see is ocean.

Ahimsa - Non-violence

The Yoga Diaries - A journey during which I transform from a caterpillar into a slightly-less-neurotic caterpillar

This weekend, I participated in the first dozen or so hours of yoga teacher training (YTT) along with 11 other beautiful souls. This left me feeling the muscle pain of a 90-year-old woman. I would take an Epsom salt bath except that my bathtub is broken.

On this first weekend, the instructors -- whom we will lovingly refer to as Jade and Yoga Elsa (not to be confused with Therapy Elsa or Store Elsa) -- assigned us reading on ahimsa. This is the yogic concept of non-violence. I think this concept stuck with me the most because I am right now feeling extremely violent.

After learning distressing news from my family, my face immediately "exploded" again, so it turns out I am not cured of angioedema after all.

On the way to my doctor - the one who pumps me full of steroids whenever I get so stressed that my face explodes -- a rock flew through the sunroof of my car, completely shattering the window and raining down glass all over me whilst I was driving.

I literally have glass in my ASS. I have ASS GLASS!!!!!!! 

I have been informed the cost to repair this is $850, which I do not currently have because I gave all my money to the CHARLATAN who showed me this flooring sample: 

-- but allowed THIS to be installed:

-- and told me it was never going to be a "perfect match." As you can see, it is nowhere NEAR the color of my actual floors. I told the installation guy to stop. So now I have half a kitchen floor, and I still owe $800, not to mention the additional thousands of dollars I'm going to have to come up with to fix it.

My only consolation is that 3rd hour says: "Miss T, it is literally the highlight of every Monday to hear what happened to you over the weekend... mowing your own lawn for the first time and accidentally running over one of your monarchs; losing your cat; finding your cat locked in your shed two days later..."

In addition to all of this, I went out on a good date. (I know, I'm as shocked as you). This guy, whom we'll call Garrett because that is actually his name and I'm NOT feeling non-violent, could legit hold a good conversation and he had freckles! He repeatedly referred to our next date and texted me as soon as he got home to tell me what an amazing time he had and to reference our next date...

And then he ghosted. POOF.

I didn't think I was invested at all until I realized I was mad as hell. I wasn't mad about the guy himself or the loss of potential romance... I was mad at being treated like this when it is so freaking easy to treat someone with decency. 

Like, it's just not that hard to say, "Hey, I met someone, and I want to pursue that to see if there's anything there. Wanted to be upfront with you and wish you the best!" I have a lot of respect for that.

Dragonfly and I have been saying the following mantra each morning when we wake up:

We have been saying this every morning for the last two weeks, and to review, in the last two weeks I have experienced:

* Ghosting

* Glass in my ass

* Facial Explosions

* Half of a floor

* $850 window bill

Basically, I have experienced the exact opposite of everything Dragonfly and I have been "manifesting." For those who understand this type of thing, what the actual fkkk!?

All I have learned so far:

* ahimsa is very hard

* bad things do not happen in three's

Explain.