For the past three or four nights, I've been having high school dreams. Dreams I'm back in front of the classroom, where I've engaged the students in a large group discussion, where I'm answering questions, where Old High School and Local High School's structures and students have intermingled. In some dreams, I have met with the principal and agreed to the .2 position of teaching ALC freshmen again; while I will miss this routine, I cannot imagine taking on that in addition to being a full time graduate student and TAing as well. It's been weeks since the school year ended; I wonder why it's haunting me now.
In turn, I've finally begun to fantasize about the MFA program I will be entering in the autumn. Part of me is so rooted in routine, in creating lesson plans as I drive my car, in feeling confident in one out of twenty of said lesson plans, in considering how best to spend my mornings (sleeping) before the school year begins again. But I won't return to the same room, seven to three. I won't heave desks about the room, a kind of jigsaw puzzle in alignment and cramming forty some sweaty teenage bodies in a conversational position, with enough space for me to wiggle to and from my desk. Land mines. Backpacks. The like.
I'll have a different sort of maneuvering and it feels just like a dream. Is it really happening? Not yet, no, but will it? Is it true? Have I only imagined last winter's waiting game, the torture of running to the answering machine, the way my bowels turned to liquid every time I logged into a forum, wondering if someone had heard from the college I wanted most? (And indeed, the wait list, the period of time when I was certain I had lost, the weighty and highly consequential debate of moving away from my husband temporarily versus a low-residency balance with full time high school teaching.)
Oh, it's true, it's real.
(Oh, M.Ed, I dig into that thesis... and Chris, you will receive a draft soon. xo)
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