March 12-New Orleans

Today was better, but students are a mercurial bunch. Again I thank GOd for his love, warmth, kindness, for keeping me so close. What more could I ask for beyond the many gifts I have been given. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It is hard to be among them (the sutdents) and not be one of them; to feel your separateness as severely as the pain of growing wisdom teeth and knowing they myst be pulled. How to connect without wanting to immerse yourself in that connection, how to pull back and away without drowning in the space between spaces. How to be intimate without them feeling threatened by your realness, your willingness to be reveal. How to refuse connextion when it is at a cost you feel is too much to pay. How to deal with how the atmosphere changes when you walk into a room and still have the courage to enter and leave, enter and love, love and leave and enter.... again and again and again

March 11 cont'd

I love my job but I do want to move on in my life and to choose a path where the burden is not so heavy at least for a while or I guess I mean where at least for a while or I guess I mean where for at least a while the relationships are more reciprocal or perhaps-- what do I mean? This reminds me--on an emotional level of a trip I took back home to Maryland over Christmas Break-- how I had one set of expectations that quickly transformed into else. That I am learning so much about myself and who I am, but it is a very painful process. To deal with the fact that others are, and will continue, to constantly make assumptions about me that I have no control over. To be fragile & vulnerable at a time when I would like to be least so. It was an awful day, a blow to my ego and my spirit and still I know that God never left my side. being an adult is hard, it's scary, to have to make unequivocal decisions that no one else can make, to be no one else--unchanging. There is so much more I want to write, but I am growing tired. I thank God for his mercu, for the presence of the Holy Spirit. For the gift of Life, for his gift of my mother, and I pray that he contiue to watch over me. Amen.