On Monday, I submitted my first quarter grades.  I’m 25% done with the school year.  My, how time passes.

I’d like to think that it’s become easier, but it hasn’t.  I’ve done a better job at being prepared, at handling missteps that I’ve made- and that students make; however, it’s still difficult.  There are still days where I find myself wondering if I’m in the middle of the biggest mistake of my life, where I long to escape to familiarity.  Yes, even after a few months I still feel that I’m in uncharted waters.

I mean that in several ways.  As the holiday season approaches, I crave being close to family and friends.  I long to be where things make sense.  Where, as cheesy as it is, everybody knows my name.  I’ve been bad about keeping in touch with people and part of the reason that I have is because it forces me to be nostalgic and I can’t be that way and be productive.  I’ve had to put people in the box of what was, as opposed to the box of what is…because I feel that in order for me to create and live this new life, I have to detach myself from the things before.

I don’t know what any of this means, other than that despite the joy of making it this far, I still feel that I have so far to go.  I’m in a nice place, but it’s not home.  And I think home is what I need right now.  Yeah, Dorothy had it right- “there’s no place like home.”