Stay At Home Girlfriend

 

“There’s a trick to the ‘graceful exit.’ It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It was important. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” 

| Ellen Goodman 

 

 This quote could not be more perfect for my life right now. 

My last day at Goddard was originally scheduled for May 29th, two days before we planned to move. I moved the date up to the 22nd, realizing that I would be a giant stress ball if I didn't take some time off to successfully pack up our place, organize and get rid of things, something I love to do.  The feeling of cleaning and throwing things away that I no longer have use for or straight up, don't like anymore, is something I thoroughly enjoy. I ask myself, "If someone were to secretly throw this away, would I notice?" If the answer is no, in the trash it goes, or the Goodwill pile, depending. 

Before I started working in childcare, I had this weird "year curse," I called it. Every job up until the one I had in a center setting, I completely lost interest in around a year, give or take a month or two. I felt a need for change. I didn't feel the need to change professions, but I did need a change inside the company, so my director, at the time, was happy to put me in another classroom, if I needed. Thankfully, this was an option. Well, I had been at Goddard for a little over two years, loved my classroom at one point and the age group, toddlers, but my last few weeks at Goddard were tough. I had this thought in my mind that I was leaving, my kids were challenging, I just didn't have the patience or want to grow that connection and relationship with the newer kids in my class because I didn't feel it worth it. This was a constant mindset of mine, I had a hard time steering clear from it and this was not good for me on a day to day basis. It was time for a change. I needed change.

Long story short, I was done with work a lot sooner than planned, without a graceful exit, not going to lie. After leaving work so frustrated, I had a hard time holding back tears on each drive home, I decided it wasn't worth it. Financially, it would be tough, having a couple weeks off in between my end date at Goddard and my start date at KinderCare, but this was less important to me than my happiness. I would rather be even more of  a broke joke for a couple weeks, than have upset, frustrated thoughts towards such an amazing company, one that I had been happy with for the last couple years of my life. I wanted to remember Goddard as the place that came as close as possible to the first center that I worked at, the one that set the bar extremely high. I was so happy there. I wanted to keep those grateful thoughts I had towards that place and the management, instead of spending my last few weeks in Colorado, upset and frustrated at the end of every work day. 

So, this week and next, I'm a stay at home girlfriend. 

With the help of our road trip at the beginning of this month, I can now stay awake later than 8PM. I no longer wake up at 6AM and have 2 breakfasts before 10. I actually went back to sleep yesterday and woke up at 11AM and felt extremely disgusted with myself. So, I made myself work out. I decided that I'm going to make amazing use of my time this week and next. 

 This morning, I went and observed another toddler classroom at a high quality center in Boulder. See? Keeping myself busy. I have always been curious about other classrooms, only ever having been in the ones in centers I've worked for. It was an eye opener for me. Seeing the teacher's interactions and love towards the kiddos just made me realize even more that I wasn't in a good place my last couple weeks at Goddard. I was so frustrated that I wasn't taking the time to be the teacher that I can be, and know to be, to better the children and all of our happiness day to day. I also learned, that I need to let go a bit and let toddlers be toddlers. The teachers in the classroom weren't constantly, or at all, worried about things being neat or picked up. How do I even have this mindset with children? Let them be messy! Let them have the option of a bunch of different toys and activities, because they learn when they are having fun and when they want to. Not on my time. I'm taking this realization back to my classroom in Wisconsin, whatever classroom that may be.

In the last week, Joel has been taking apart our yard, replanting things in different planters, rearranging what we're leaving here and getting everything ready to go back to Wisconsin with us. We'll have a yard to call our own to invest time and money into, hooray! Yesterday, he took out each fishie, crab, eel and snail, put them into separate bags, drained the water in our salt water fish tank, took it apart and loaded it into his truck to drive it home to Wisconsin. This motivated me to start some packing myself. I started to take down pictures, pack candles, home decor and put them into boxes. "This is so insane," I kept telling Joel. Packing up our life here seems so surreal, it came so fast. When Joel was finally ready to take off, I kissed him goodbye, told him to be safe and turned the outside light on, a habit, when he leaves and I don't expect his return until late at night. I turned the light off and reminded myself that he wouldn't be home tonight. He would be back in Wisconsin. And then I felt extremely home sick. I thought to myself, how in the world could I feel so homesick? Or was it another feeling? I need to be here. I only have ten more days here. Ten more days in this amazing state that we've called 'home' for the last two and a half years. Oh, Colorado, you deserve a blog post all to yourself. 

In ten days, we close our Colorado chapter and move our life back to the Midwest. It's going to be so weird, great, but so weird to be back there and not just being there to visit. It will be our home. Colorado will now be the place that we visit, not somewhere we come home to. I'll have to remind myself when we get back to the land of cheese that I won't be on vacation but staycation. That's what we said when we moved our lives to Colorado, a little more fitting for this state than Wisconsin.

I'll let you know how my staycation is this coming winter back in the Midwest.

Yikes.

 

It's getting more and more real.

The beard beanie I just couldn't resist.

Happy Birthday, E!

A lumberjack themed Birthday party helped us celebrate this guy turning 1. 

It's slowly getting more and more real, the fact that Joel and I are moving 15 hours away from this family, my best friend here. Alyssa and I both transferred to the same center, from centers we loved dearly but moved too far away from to continue to work at. I started a week before her and felt totally understanding to the tears she shed after her first day, when we closed the school and walked to our cars together. "I cried after my first day too," I told her. Bonding over the fact that this center, by no means compared to the ones we started at, I had a feeling about her and a great friendship. Eventually, we both moved on to other centers, where we were happier, the same company in different towns and we stayed close. I was thankful for my time at the first school, because I developed such a great friendship, as well as another with my co-teacher at the time. As we've gotten to know each other well these past few years, she is who I will miss the most, when I think about the people we've met during this chapter in our lives, the people we are leaving behind in this beautiful state. Getting to be apart of your life, getting to know you and yours, seeing your little man grow so much and develop such a fun personality, is something I will miss and treasure dearly. You have my permission to call me and make me become a phone person once and awhile, and I hope you do. I'll do my best to do the same. Being younger than me means nothing, you have taught me so much. You are my own personal Google and I will miss you like crazy. 

Everyday, I take in the sunshine in our living room, the comfort of our backyard, the trees, the outdoor couches, the fact that we have a backyard, the feeling like we're in the country when we're really in town and I feel so grateful that we found this place and so sad to be leaving it in two months. Saying goodbye to our first place together is not going to be easy.

Joel recently returned from back home, where he put in the new flooring in the basement of our future home, the house I grew up in. Frequently, as my end date at work draws near, I have been asked "So, you don't love Colorado as much as you thought you would? Why are you moving back home?" The truth is, with me being a teacher and Joel being a full time musician, us having jobs that we absolutely love and are passionate about but don't make much money for, we would spend the rest of our lives saving money to buy a house. The fact that my parents are allowing us to buy the house that I grew up in, for a great deal, well, we will be thanking them for the rest of our lives. I didn't always know that Hudson, Wisconsin was where I wanted to raise my family. Before I moved away, I knew that I hadn't been enough places around this amazing world to know where we wanted to set up shop, do the family thing. In our case, it took us moving 15 hours away, into another time zone, to realize that nothing compares to your roots. I know this isn't the case for everyone and that makes us feel even more lucky. Some people go away and have no desire to ever go back to where they grew up. There are people and things and mountains we will miss greatly, but we are ready to no longer watch all the babies in our lives grow up through Facebook and Instagram. We are ready to be involved in every single family event and never miss a wedding, anniversary dinner, reunion or graduation party again.

One more note, before I get on with this obligation free Saturday; my wonderful, caring, loving, encouraging, understanding, (I could go on but do I really need to?) other half turned 28 on the 31st of March. Twenty eight! We always talk about how fun growing up is and how old we thought, even a 20 year old was when we were still in high school. That just seemed so ancient. The fact that we are both now, closer to 30, well, we love it. And I'm convinced we are the only ones. 

Here's to you and how much more fun you make my life, just being in it.

Doing life with you is so wonderful.