my mind and my heart...

my mind is constantly at war with my heart.

disclaimer: i love my parents dearly.

my mother is listening to peter, paul and mary's "this land is your land". my father is currently driving for the limo service, and i feel guilty being THRILLED with this time away from him because EVERY DAY i come home from work, he is here. the retiree is a home body. (now i know where i get it from).

i need decompression time from my job. this year i have been unable to be home before 5pm (with the exception of rare occasions and my precious fridays - i refuse to stay later than 3pm on a friday). whenever i come home, someone is here, and i am forced to close my door and hole up in my room while i process my day and prepare to talk.

is it too much to ask to have a home of my own? where i can hear only the music i want to hear? somewhere that gives me a little more space of my own? somewhere i can light the candles i want to burn? where i can leave something, and when i get back after a 10 or 11 hour day, it will still be there? somewhere i can call MY own? somewhere i can choose the color of the walls and the curtains i hang? somewhere i can express MY own self in the decor? somewhere i choose the carpeting?

i can't help but feel guilty for feeling this way, because as i stated in my disclaimer, i adore my parents. they're great. but i think i could adore them more if i was living down the road 10 minutes from them :)

(thanks for giving me that opportunity this week, rachel and kyle! even though i would much rather be with everyone!!)

i often wonder what God is preparing me for by living at home... still.

i could get a part time job... i technically DO have a part time job mondays, wednesdays and thursdays... it pays well... but i feel like working an additional minimum wage, part time job would further my exhaustion and take away from the energy i am required to have on a daily basis from 7am-4pm. it just doesn't seem worth it.

so, the plan is to stop saving for a few months and pay off some credit card balances i've been carrying for too long. i can write off my student loans in a few more years if i stick with teaching in an inner city school district. (definite bonus to teaching city kids, not sure if my sanity being on the line is worth it, though). pay extra on the (amazing) car (that i am still in love with) in order to pay that off early. cancel the gym membership. go to the cheapest netflix membership available. etc, etc, etc....

i really try to stay positive and see the bright side of things and lean on the Everlasting. BUT... this week has been tough on me. bad things happening to good people. friends making really poor choices. students making more poor choices. family members struggling financially. friends and family members struggles with addiction.

(side note that made me laugh: i proof read this and it originally said "friends and family members struggles with addition". ha! also, WHY is blogger so dumb and changing the size of my font in the middle of this post and then putting it back to normal later in the post? annoying.)

i have klove playing on another tab in my browser and this was playing as i wrote that last paragraph: "there will be a day with no more tears, no more pain and no more fears. there will be a day when the burdens of this palce, will be no more, we will see Jesus face to face, but until that day, we will hold on to you always..."

this post really doesn't have a conclusion, and that bothers my music-teacher-forced-to-additionally-teach-language-arts-and-essay-writing-skills self...... but the ultimate purpose of this blog is to document my heart and thoughts.... so that i can look back and see where i was and where i ended up.

to be continued...