So....I titled my post "in hopes of living bigger". But what, exactly, am I doing lately in those hopes? I've been so busy and so overwhelmed with the day to day life that the hopes of living bigger have merely turned in to hopes of surviving each day and making it by to the next.

My hopes of becoming an amazing teacher, while not over, are definitely (I feel) on hold. I have gone from planning inventive, insightful lessons to merely surviving the lessons. Yes, I still have the students' attention and my classroom is still a pretty decent place to be- but it hasn't been *amazing* lately. I haven't gone out of my way to pull students into my office and offer them additional assistance. I haven't scheduled out an amazing plan to make sure all students leave my classroom with that awesome feeling of wonder and excitement that I had planned. Lately, I just feel like i'm...surviving.

What else am I doing to be "living bigger" lately? Nothing, really. And it's not that I need to do these amazing things or travel to these amazing places to feel like i'm living a bigger life. No, it's the small things. It's making time for a monthly pedicure, making time to read those inspirational blogs that I so love at the coffee shop with the lattes topped with foam pictures of hearts and leaves, it's making time to do what ever it is that I am doing with gusto and ambition and inspiration.

So, what do I do now? What do I do now that I most certainly won't get the teaching job I've been going to school for the last 7 years for, most certainly am not with the guy that I'm going to marry that, when I met him, I waited for and only imagined us being the most perfect of couples, and most certainly feeling like I'm lacking the usual inspiration that I really feel makes me...me? Well, I guess I adapt. I change. I go back to square one.

Isn't that crazy...square one. After all the millions of things I've been through- the jobs I've had, the guys I've dated, the experiences I've had....square one. However, I'm not really sure square one is the worst place to be. Here I am, so many years later, with a clear picture of what I want out of life. No, not the perfect guy in my head, the perfect job, or the perfect picture of what my life is going to be like. But the idea of who I am and the things that I plan to get out of life. The feeling, above all, of hope. The feeling that anything is possible. I find myself, after a bad breakup, after getting fired, after a big loss of some sort, going back to that square one. This place is a beautiful place to me- a place where anything is possible. Everything is in front of you and any choice is possible. I'm not locked into anything. Everything I do, from this point on out, is my choice. I think this is something many people overlook: I choose to be where I'm at. No one chooses where they are from, where you now is an unchangable thing, but where you are going- that, my friends, is changable for anyone at anytime.

So now, I choose to go forward. I chose to have the world in front of me. And, you know what, if I choose to be here in Salem, substitute teach, waitress, be single....well, that sounds like a pretty great life to me. And it will be, because I chose it. And if it doesn't turn out to be what I want, well, I guess I'll go back to square one again =)