Chapter Twenty-Three
The Lesson to Live
“But you can’t leave us! At least wait ‘til we graduate!”
“You wouldn’t do that to us!”
“But… why?”
“No one could replace you.”
“Don’t leave us with someone else…”
“Well, at least I’m graduating.”
I tested the waters today. During my brief time of sanity with the normal ‘lunch crew’ in my art room I let it ‘slip’ that I had decided to move along. My time here was done and it was time to move on to somewhere that would make me happy. The kids responded as if I was dying. It made my head swell a little bit, but at the same time it sort of made me regret even telling them. Their reactions made all of this so much worse. In fact, for a brief moment, I had a lapse in judgment and I believed that I was making a huge mistake. But shaking my head, I reminded myself that it was time to live for me.
Simply put… it was just time to live.
I had done a lot for myself in the past few months. Succeeding in so many things gave me hope that my life wasn’t going to be one big disappointment after the other. I wasn’t necessarily going to fail for taking a risk. In the past couple months, I had completed a sculpture that I was proud of and I had put it in an art show. It was a big hit with me, my husband, and my friends. I’m not sure how everyone else reacted to it. But then again, I didn’t give a shit. Randomly, I had also written a book. I was still dodging the publishers because I was afraid to bear my sole like that. I mean, I still get embarrassed just explaining what my book is about – even though secretly I am so proud of myself. I do intend to eventually get up enough courage to call back one of the publishers. And if you’re reading this now – well then I’ve succeeded again.
Recently, I had been searching for an art teaching job in any school near a coastline. And suddenly, it was like I had something to look forward to. It was like I had cast aside the curtains in a dimly lit room and the sunlight had just come pouring in, filling me with hope and happiness. It was time for my husband and me to begin our life together. It was time to get unstuck, and we sure as hell were fighting against some heavy-duty superglue. But we were breaking out the thinner because we were determined to move on. Our dreams were waiting. Hell, the rest of our life was waiting.
My husband and I had come a long way in the past few months. We had learned to listen to each other and to ourselves – not all those other people. We were tired of being told what we should and shouldn’t do based on people that had never lived for themselves. We didn’t want to make that same mistake. We wanted to take a risk and start living. We wanted to start our own family and I really think that that’s what sparked the whole revelation within us.
It was decided that within the next year, we wanted to start a family. Of course we knew that we both had always wanted children. But as of late, it seemed like all that we talked about. We gave ourselves a year to get our shit together and then we were going to dive on in – straight into the deep end. And we both decided that it would be better if we had already taken our life-sized risk before another one came into our lives. I guess maybe I was just at the point in my life where I wanted to hold a child of my own. I wanted to be a mother. And strangely enough, without even saying anything to my husband about it, he admitted that he was at that point in his life when he wanted to be a father.
I guess without us realizing it, life was just beginning to run its race. Life had reached the starting line and we were just waiting for the gunshot.
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