The Last One

Initially I sat down to write about the body builderia everyone in my house is currently suffering from.  If you are not aware of body builderia, it is a condition where when one person says “Look at my arms!” and those suffering with body builderia immediately roll up their shirtsleeves and flex for comparison.  All McMahons are terrible about this; even the boy, who in his sloth-like condition should have absolutely no muscle tone as he lifts nothing heavier than the TV remote, yet has the mostly beautifully sculpted arms around.  And while I could easily pump out a solid thousand words more about body builderia, today I find that maybe I should not.

We had a staff meeting recently about social media, kids, and parents and how everything and anything we say or type or emoji can and will be used against us in the teaching profession.  While I am not teaching yet, I will be and this has started to concern me.  If I type up a blog today with humor and with no ill will about body builderia, will an angry parent somewhere down the line come across this blog and accuse me of being insensitive about eating disorders?  Even though body builderia is entirely made up, will they look at it and say “There!  This is the proof that this woman is insensitive and as such the only reason my child is failing!”  It seems a stretch, but it could happen.  It does happen. I don’t want it to happen to me.

I’ve worked hard to realize my goal of becoming a teacher.  I took the long road to getting here and I am old to be starting a new career.  Well, older anyway.   I think that the goal of teaching is drawing nearer and I keep saying things like “When I am a teacher” or use declarative statements in front of most of the faculty that start “As I will be teaching next year…” and it feels really good.  When I am left in charge of someone’s classroom and I stand up there and explain and talk and teach, I feel like this is where I am supposed to be.  It is almost similar to when I held SG for the first time and knew, quite instantly, that this is what I was meant to do with my life.  This is the work I want to do for the next twenty+ years of my life and I don’t want to feel like I am exposing myself to losing this career because I quickly wrote about something I found amusing at the time. 

I love this blog. I love to write about what is going on in our lives, our things that I think stink or things in our life that stink. I love to reread the ones I wrote three years ago and sigh about what a sad-sack Sally I was.  I love the feedback that I get from you after I blog.  Being a middle child, I need that constant validation.  I love to write, I love to take all of my words and throw them down in a way I think is pleasing to read about.  However, as much as I’d secretly wished my blog would be picked up by Huffington Post or that I would be offered an editorial spot in the Austin American Statesman, neither thing has happened.  This blog might be a happy maker, but it is not a money maker.  So again, teaching wins as they will actually pay me to teach.  A little bit anyway.

So I guess what I am doing here today is retiring from Rebecca Who Always Spoke Loudly.  My words will always be a huge part of me, but I don’t want them to be the undoing of me.  I don’t want to continue writing it in a censored, watered-down, parentally approved version of me either, because that would be an undoing of me as well.  All or nothing, all or nothing.  However, I do know that I will continue to write because it is part of me.  It gives me joy to write, it gives me my sanity back when I write and it gives me peace when I look back and reread the old stuff and see how far we have come.  I will just choose a more private venue.  Maybe this will even force me to send Christmas cards and not assume everyone is reading my blog and knows all about our life.  Maybe I’ll enter writing contests, although I do not like to be limited in the amount of words I am supposed to write in.  Perhaps I will put more thought into what I am writing and somehow put a whole book together.  Maybe I will take the adventures of my first year of teaching and publish it under a pen name and make a million dollars and then let you all know that it was me!  It could actually happen.  Or, much like the sports world, I might announce this retirement only to come back again and again.  I am not one hundred percent sure.  All I know is that I truly want to be a teacher and I am going to focus on that for now.  Rebecca, who always spoke loudly, is going to continue to be shushed in the library, continue to use all of her words and most importantly, Rebecca, who always spoke loudly, is going to teach.

See?!  It says teacher right on it!

All the Nice Words

As you know, I am usually a very big proponent for words.  I think in words, understand in words and talk in words, a lot.  I like to use big words and fill up time and space with words and sprinkle my words liberally on others.  When you use words this much, you tend to forget how impactful they can be.  How quickly a word can eviscerate or invalidate or how a list of words can enumerate or penetrate and pierce through your soul.  Words are powerful stuff and I often forget this.  I am not talking about somebody’s written words, although they can be powerful too.  I am talking about the words that come out of our mouth in a huff, in a jest, or in a rush.  Words tumbling out, landing on top of each other in a jagged pile, pulling our heart and our tears with them.  Those words are ick.

As I have both wounded and been wounded by these ick words this week, I have started to rethink how I use my words.  Perhaps I should be more judicious with my words.  Perhaps not everything needs to be spoken aloud or kneaded and rolled into a doughy, wordy mess.  Or maybe I could just use my words nicely.  Take all of those things that I might think but don’t say (yes, I actually do think things and not always say them) and say them.  That would be okay too and I could consider it my Valentine’s gift to the world and by doing so take the yucky-schmaltzy-overhyped-ick out of Valentine’s Day as well.  Two icks, one stone!

Today I started using my nice words with my son.  He does not get many nice words from me in the morning, but to be fair it also shouldn’t take eighteen minutes to eat one piece of toast.  When he came downstairs wearing the same pair of shorts he has worn the last two days, I did not tell him he can’t wear those shorts one more day.  Instead I told him how nicely his shorts went with the shirt he put on and that he looked handsome.  He beamed and ate his toast in a mere twelve minutes.  Fueled by this small success, I committed to bringing my nice words with me to work.  I packed them right alongside my leftovers for lunch and my water bottle and they fit there perfectly.  When I called a kid by name to come over and sign in, he was surprised I knew his name and said it was so nice that I knew it and used it.  Even names can be nice! 

I feel like I am on a roll now and can singlehandedly combat the carnage of mean words, impulsive words and the hyperbole of canned romance for this upcoming Hallmark holiday.  I am going to say every nice word I can think!  I am going to not say the mean words I think! I am going to think before I speak!  I am going to change the world!  Join me in using nice words!  (And yes, I do think nice words can still be peppered with salty language).  Let’s dissolve the blah of February by using our best words – the ones we usually save for Sundays, or holidays or first dates.  Take them out, brush them off and throw them into a conversation.  Watch someone’s face light up when you use your nice words on them.  Relieve the blah of winter or the drudgery of a long work week by filling your colleagues’ ears with nice words rather than the usual complaints.  I have already told one of mine that she is tenacious and powerful and I usually just ask her to stop singing.  Finally, when the silliness of Valentine’s Day overpowers your resolve to say nice words and all the words you are thinking start with either “stupid” or “lame” and you know this will shatter the heart of someone who still believes in cupids, fill your mouth with chocolate instead.  They get to keep their cupids and you get to eat chocolate while thinking mean words you won’t say and everyone is happy, but mostly you because you are eating chocolate.

By the handful.