A Corner Turned

As anyone who follows this blog knows, my husband Laston died of cancer August 10th, 2016.

And on August 11th, 2018, I turned a corner.

You see, August 10th is Lee's birthday. As with last year, I tried my best - and so did Lee's mom - to make the 10th about Lee, not about Lee's dad. And it worked pretty well. A little sad, sure, a little wistful. But basically, a good time, because hey, Lee's birthday. Card games with kids ranging from ten to 18 (eighteen?! That means I have known Lee for 13 years!!), ice cream cake (and discussion of whether it is really cake if there is no cake, just because 31 Flavors calls it "cake.") Fun times.

But still, a bit sad, because well... because.

Then Saturday, August 11th? I woke up and it was like I was a new person.

I am absolutely sure some of this is for other reasons; I finally have a job (or maybe actually up to four jobs, because being a substitute for various functions in the school district plus the usual piecework writing is a lot of part-time work!), for instance, and although not everything is resolved on other fronts, one can see the light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel.

Part of it, or more like most of it, is internal.

My suspicion is that my subconscious mind went, "hey. Y'know what, Jenn? It's been two years since Laston's death. It's been tough, it's been awful, but well... nothing is irretrievably broken because of this."

And my conscious mind actually paid attention.

In the last two weeks, I have secured up to four jobs, taken several training classes, passed assorted tests, started writing two articles, and started planning stuff for the school year. I've been able to tell both gosh-you-look-friendly facebook flirters and political emailers to back the hell off. I feel physically crappy because of the awful air quality, but I'm emotionally so much more okay than I have been that I am able to still get up and do stuff (albeit masked and armed with a battery of inhalers), instead of lying in bed without the energy to do a damn thing.

Frankly, it's amazing.

Yes, I do get that there will still be bad moments, hours, even days or more. And counseling and treatment are still in play. But I feel equal to the task of dealing with things now.

And that is huge.

Knowledge

Things I learned today:

• That although I - like most people - am a distracted driver, I am not as badly off as I feared.
• That I haven't forgotten the rules of the road since I learned to drive in the eighties.
• That although I haven't forgotten the rules, I have forgotten quite a bit of the vocabulary:
• For instance, you know that place where the painted lines come to a point when an on-ramp merges onto the freeway? That pointy bit is a "gore." I assume that this is a gore as in a sewing technique, rather than as gobbets of bloody flesh or as a former Vice-President of the United States of America.
• Did I ever know that a two-way turn lane was colloquially known as a "suicide lane?"
• Ha! I remember the I Like Bikes... But... filmstrip we had back in the 80s. The DVDs they use these days are much better. I want to bring the distracted driver one home to show to the girls; it's creepy in an almost Twilight Zone-esque way.
• That although I am fairly comfortable with the "student management" part of the program, I'm a bit intimidated about the actual driving of something so much bigger than my minivan.
• Never fear; they won't put me into a bus on my own for weeks (and even then as a substitute driver); I will be taking written tests and getting a CDL learner's permit and so forth for a while first.
• Also, there are other things one can do early on, like spending the first few days making sure the kindergartners and other new students get on and off the bus at the right stop. Or driving the smaller vans that don't require a CDL for certain programs in the district. 
• That one can have more than one substitute position at the school district. I have an interview Wednesday as a substitute assistant cook, for instance. This sounds very exciting to me!
• That some people in a few of my games on Facebook take the games and their position in the games way too seriously. And too personally. And as though they know what they're talking about as far as app development goes.
• That I really do not understand how Google works; why does my Chrome keep logging me out and not letting me share these blog posts easily?
• That Lizzy is adorable (I know; I knew that already). But she spent the morning at art camp with her bestie, and she built a robot from TinkerCrate this afternoon, and now she's showing the neighbor kid how cool it is. So CUTE.

A New Adventure

Not this kind of adventure, though that happens in our house. Nor this. Not even this kind, although that might happen later this year; it often does.

Actually, I am going to learn to drive a school bus.

That's right, I got a job; I start training Monday.

It never actually occurred to me - of all the things I could do in the educational sector - that driving a bus might be on the list. I mean, I have experience working with little kids (I worked in preschools and took classes back in the day), girl-scout-aged kids (though I'm not a troop leader or anything, I have certainly helped them sell the cookies!), and cared for my own two and my stepkid (more on that later). So when I went to the NSD job fair last Saturday, I thought, oh, maybe paraeducator, recess teacher, lunch lady, things that fit my communications-major-with-a-side-of-early-childhood-education view of myself.

But they need bus drivers, and the more I thought about it, the more attractive it sounded. I would learn a valuable skill and gain a useful license. I would be working with the kids and making a difference. I would be making decent money in a position that aligns (mostly) with my own kids' school schedules.

This is not technically a full-time job, so there's plenty of time to do other projects. One of which is, possibly, that lunch lady position I mentioned up there; my interview as a substitute assistant cook is Wednesday after my bus training. The others of which are things I already have in my pile; textbroker, CopyPress, any remote one-offs I can get from my job contacts in the creative space for writing, and a few - as yet not fully formed - personal writing projects.

Now, as you may know, today is the second anniversary of Laston's death. And yes, I am feeling sad and a little mad and somewhat out of sorts. But it's not last year, when I could barely function at all, and it is, more importantly, the 18th birthday of Laston's oldest child. Last year it took some major effort to make August tenth about Lee rather than Laston. This year, it just is. And that is totally okay; it indicates healing and growth and positivity.

So we're having a small family-and-besties party at Lee's house with Karry this evening after all parties are done with work/camp/etc.

And Monday, I get to go to work.

Should be an adventure!

Everything I Know I Learned from Star Trek

Well, more or less.

I learned about kindness, and why racism is bad, and history and myth, and heroism and villainy, and friendship and enmity, and doing what's right when that differs from what is legal. In other words, I learned about life in theory, and - in spite of my mother's worries (which she still has, though I am in my late forties), I do understand the difference between Star Trek and reality.

Her concern may now have more to do with my daughter's ability to separate the two, as my enthusiasm for the stories and characters has infected Abby. I showed it to her deliberately, and over the course of the summer thus far, we have watched all of the Original Series, all of the Animated Series, the first four films, and about two-thirds of The Next Generation.
She loves it.

It's possible that she is not as involved as I was at her age or a little older, because she has an outlet for all that creative energy already, in the theater (and let me tell you about the great production of Footloose she's part of just now, but that's really another post). When I was her age, I hadn't yet discovered role-playing games or fanfic writing, and although I played the cello, I didn't have a lot of awareness of my true passion for communication.

So we're watching, and enjoying, and - as was the case with Doctor Who, but less so, as I only know NuWho very well - I am seeing it afresh through the eyes of my child. And that's kind of amazing. She's also far more genre-savvy than I was at her age, and so things like the dichotomy between Very Progressive Ideas and Very Short Skirts are discussed and deconstructed. Also, most of these actors have done other work that she has seen (or heard) them in. She really digs that.

Abby's not the only one with whom I am sharing old favorites. I'm rereading the Mallorean, which is my usual Comfort Literature. And Lizzy and I are listening to the audiobook of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, courtesy of Audiobooks, Inc. and Stephen Fry, whenever we're alone together in the car. I love that she understands these, as I certainly wouldn't have at not-quite-eleven.

I do love my electronics, and my Facebook presence is far less involved these days for my own (mental health) protection; I am now set to Friends Only, and am only posting lighter stuff, and for the sake of my sanity, I now refuse to read the comments on any political article, anywhere. I'm just trying to stay informed without twisting my guts into a knot over the stupidity of my fellow humans and countrymen. So I'm reading less fraught articles, and posting such gems as "2016 Presidential Election - Shaka, when the walls fell," which mostly only those of my own tribe will grok.

And if I can teach Abby and Lizzy about reality through metaphor, based on the classic science fiction of its time, I will.