Since the New Year, life has been turned upside down a couple of times around here - if that's possible. My s-son had been enduring some pretty bad situations and relationships at his bio-mom's house. Things were never great or healthy there, but in a combination of him becoming fed up and the circumstances getting worse, it all reached a head. There's lots of details and tangents to the story that I could share, but I don't think I really want to. I've talked about this quite a bit in the last month and a half...with the husband, friends, colleagues, and even in family counselling. Suffice to say that we are still in the middle of a custody battle, but luckily everything in the courts so far has been going our way.
The husband and I have had to band together and adjust quickly to everything that has been happening. There's been a new level of closeness to our friendship because of these circumstances. I'm grateful for that, I can't imagine if it was headed the other way and this transition was pushing us apart.
After going to family court and listening to the cases of other families being heard, I have decided that if I were in charge of things, every couple who had a baby would be required to sit in family court and see what people go through when their relationships fall apart - the pain they feel, the mess they create and the problems they pass on to their children. I like to think that most people would treat the act of becoming parents together with the sacredness it deserves if they could see first hand how badly it can turn out.
I'm a child of a broken home, my parents fought way to much in front of myself and my siblings for far too many years. After seeing the mess their marriage became, and after being up close to witness a couple of my peers go through divorces, I have always sworn that divorce was a life experience that I never want to go through first hand. I think even further than that, I am learning that having a child with my husband would be like marrying him all over again, but at a different level. It's a bond and a level of commitment that goes further than marriage. We've talked about this lately, it's good and it's humbling.
We are learning on the fly how to be full-time parents together of a 13 year old that belongs to him, but only sort of to me, in many ways I can imagine it's much more complicated than going through a pregnancy and then having a newborn. But, it is our life and I'm grateful that I have the man that I do as my husband...it's worth the stress and the anxiety that we're going through.
In the meantime, I'm still working like crazy. I had to ask to have some of my responsibilities hedged back for my part-time online teaching job because I was becoming too overwhelmed...and my brick and mortar teaching job has not let up any - if anything I'm doing more there and maybe just learning how to manage my work load better.
So why am I even taking the time to sit down and blog if life is so incredibly busy? Well, fortune of fortunes, we are on our second snow day in a row, so I've been home for a bit. We spent some time playing in the snow yesterday and today, and the rest of the time I've been working on a paper (that's technically "due" today) that I need to get done for my National Board certification.
Last fall when I had the opportunity to sign up for the National Board's Take One! program, I thought that it sounded like a good idea. I still think it is, in theory, but right now when I'm still four pages of classroom video analysis and reflection away from finishing a 12 page paper, I'm not too happy with myself for the added stress.
The thing is, if we hadn't had these snow days, I wouldn't have had it done at all. I mean, yes, I would have still been able to submit my work for this entry, it's not actually due to the National Board folks until April 15th, but I would not have met the due date that the facilitator of the program set up. The due date that allows me the chance to have my paper read by others, critiqued, and edited before I send it in.
Two days ago I had decided to be fine with that - after the last month and a half of crazy stress and life changes, I wasn't going to worry about not finishing a paper on someone else's due date. But with the time off, the worker bee in me has to take advantage these days to get it done because that is the right thing to do...so back to my paper I will go. But, maybe I'll be back in the next couple of days with more to say and more snow pictures to share - you never know.
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