Retrospect

I've been reading old posts on this blog.

I'll be honest, there is a reason for this.
I've been reading through posts culling them for unsavory bits--swearing, moments of being crass. This is not because I'm reformed in the swearing and being slightly crass department.
No.
This is because I hope to go back to teaching.
soon.
Maybe not today.
Maybe not even next fall, although there is a position I would really like to try if given the chance.

For now, I'm just culling.
But if I started teaching again, well. I'll have to just take the blog down. or privatize it. If I did privatize it, please know that if you have any interest in continuing to read, I would certainly invite you to do so!

But access to the internet is ubiquitous--of course. It occurred to me just after submitting an application last week that this blog says it all! Any prospective employer could just google my name, and voila! You have the last 6 years of my uncensored blather. If you are a prospective employer reading this, welcome. And know that of course I would not keep a public blog if I were hired. Just saying.

Yes?

Onto other things.
Like Training.

Or wait, I can't really talk about that because I haven't been doing any.

I did go for a nice 8 mile run the other day in the warm sunshine. That was lovely.
And I attended Masters yesterday, and lamented how I am an athlete who can't hold her speed and power in the water unless I'm swimming a great deal. But I still enjoyed practice. I just had to go last in my lane.

My daughter, Jordan, is running track this spring. I love her track coach. He's taken an interest in her and believes in her. I can tell.
He has decided she is more likely an 800/mile type of runner, and not true sprinter. I knew this already, but it was nice to have him confirm it. She did the mile last week, and finished in the middle of the pack of girls who did it, finishing in 6:35. When she finished I wondered whether I could run a 6:35 right now. It truly is a question.
Yesterday she did the 800 in 2:58, which qualifies her for the middle school Invitational/State Meet at the end of the season. She is one of only a few sixth graders who has qualified for the meet at this point.  I'm a super proud mama. I love to watch her run.

Back to my blog.
One thing that culling through it has allowed me is a chance to witness how my perspective and insights have evolved over the last few years. Reading it has been informative and interesting, and actually also made me a bit sad. We are never done journeying, of course. Having a blog, or a journal-- it is a bit like leaving bread crumbs along the paths you have taken. Although, didn't the birds eat Hansel's crumbs? So that is likely not a good analogy.  I mean only that we grow older each day, but we only have clear insight into the paths we have chosen in retrospect.  This blog charts a difficult and somewhat tumultuous last few years of my life. It may not appear tumultuous to an outside eye--I don't know. But it has been, and it's interesting to see how I handled the movement through this period of middle-age.

I found the piece below interesting. It is only tangentially related to what I am saying here. But the feeling it conjures when you go through it captures how it felt to read through the last years of my life, on this blog.

Sisters, one picture a year for 36 years... photos by Nicholas Nixon