The Problem with Comparisons

“Mrs. Brion?”

“It’s Miss Brion!!!” another student quickly corrected in a hushed, but annoyed voice.

This interjection must have sparked curiosity.

A third little boy innocently raised his hand and asked,

“What’s the difference between Miss, Mrs., and Ms?”

Okay, I thought, I can digress into a brief explanation here.

After all, this is a teachable moment, right?

Then my mind started to wander,

And I wondered…

Why don’t men have these dubious titles?

Our class discussion spurred another question.

This one hit home.

It was much more personal.

“Why aren’t YOU married, Miss Brion?”

Great, I thought, not only is my beloved grandmother

Issuing me subliminal warnings about my biological clock,

But now my adolescent students are too.

Lucky for me, a girl chimed in before I had time to devise a politically correct answer.

I prefer to dodge these delicate issues…especially in the school setting.

For once,

The tables were turned.

A kid was encouraging me with their words,

“Don’t worry, Miss Brion. You will be!”

Will be what?

Married?

Haha!

Thank GOD someone believed in me.

Lord knew I didn’t believe much in myself at this stage in the game.

That didn’t mean there was something wrong with me.

Did it?

My first instinct was to issue a redundant form of worn out advice,

The kind that no one really believes...

It's okay to be yourself.

My favorite saying of the past school year was

Randomly uttered one morning during homeroom.

Impulsively.

But loaded with meaning,

“I tried being normal once, and it was the worst five minutes of my life.”

This girl understood that being different was actually a good thing.

It is a rarity for a 12-year-old to know WHO they are…

So, how I could I expect the kids to be individuals?

I would have been a true hypocrite.

Especially because I just learned how to be an individual.

This past summer.

Right before my 30th birthday.

Just in the nick of time.

Previously, my life was a bit of a mess and needed some reorganization.

Thank goodness my students taught me,

Same = BORING!

I used to be very cookie-cutter.

Ask any of my high school friends.

I didn’t have the courage to stray too far from the safety of rules,

Or expectations of authority figures.

Well…once in a great while I did…

But, I usually always ended up feeling guilty about it.

I didn’t want to let anyone down.

The other sad truth about me is that

I used to be an attention junkie.

Not with everyday people…

I didn’t need to be the center of everyone’s attention

Just the one person I devoted my life to.

And I always did this…

Clung to a long-term boyfriend.

I so fully preoccupied myself,

Searching for happiness,

In someone else,

That I forgot how to be happy with just myself.

I mistakenly thought if I could make someone else content,

They would reciprocate and

Fill me with JOY for eternity!

And, that would be enough for me.

Another part of the problem was that I used to be an

“All or nothing” type of gal.

I used to see the world in black and white.

I didn’t have balance in my life.

When I first started teaching,

I had a minor meltdown.

Why?

Because,

I didn’t think I was doing a good enough job...

For awhile, the anxiety fueled a downward spiral.

I lost my appetite.

Became an insomniac.

My heart rate was in a constant race.

I gave up any real attempts at a social life.

I didn’t do ANYTHING on the weekends…except “school work.”

I mistakenly thought I could achieve a shadow of perfection,

If I simply worked hard enough,

And DEVOTED my entire first year of teaching to working myself to

Death.

I also internalized the baggage my students helplessly brought to school with them each day.

When they acted out, I blamed myself…

Believing that I was unable to “control” them.

I now accept that truth in a different light.

No one can CONTROL anyone else.

Classroom management is kind of a farce.

Reality is that you can INSPIRE the behaviors you want to see

Through modeling

And establishing reasonable boundaries

Backed up with compassionate consequences

That are delivered consistently.

That doesn’t mean,

By any stretch of the imagination,

That I have mastered this art.

I am not a super teacher, nor will I ever claim to be.

I struggle EVERY day.

But, I LOVE my OCCUPATION and my LIFE now.

I tend to ramble.

Back to my misguided beliefs.

My pursuit of true happiness could

Only be achieved if I was flawless…

This led to my next vice.

I started measuring my self-worth against the accomplishments of my friends.

I started to pathetically believe that something was erroneous with me,

Or else I, too, would be married with an adorable toddler at my side.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t following the societal protocol.

The natural progression of life.

Idealism was my arch enemy.

In my classroom, I hung a poster with this pearl of wisdom:

“Cooperate with others, but compete ONLY against yourself.”

Apparently, I fastened it to the wall with the solemnity of duct tape,

But NEVER took the time to read and comprehend its meaning for myself.

The longer my own relationship rolled on through the motions,

The more I clung to the belief...

That an engagement must be just around the corner.

All I had to do was hold on a little longer and squeeze a little tighter.

I mean, I was engaged to this person once already,

And, I wrecked the relationship.

But, we were past all of that now.

If I just waited patiently, I would be rewarded, right?

How twisted is that line of thought?

Rewarded.

I was holding on so firmly that I was strangling the life out of both of us.

And, I am not revealing these things

In order to place blame.

Dar Williams may have felt the way I do now.

I relate to these lyrics from her song, “Iowa.”

Way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,


We don’t like to make our passions other people's concern,


And we walk in the world of safe people, and at night we walk into our houses and burn.


How I long to fall just a little bit, to dance out of the lines and stray from the light,


But I fear that to fall in love with you is to fall from a great and gruesome height.


So I asked a friend about it, on a bad day, her husband had just left her,


She sat down on the chair he left behind, she said,


"What is love, where did it get me? Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."


Once I had everything, I gave it up for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I’ve never felt.


And so for you, I came this far across the tracks, ten miles above the limit, and with no seatbelt, and I’d do it again,


For tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion,


For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see,


You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa and you were not thinking of me.

I spent almost ten years,

Off and on with a generous person,

With whom I shared some unforgettable times.

Many laughs.

A few tears.

But mostly, the rollercoaster was a FUN ride!!

I think this person knew LONG before I did,

That love wasn’t the problem.

This was a person that once:

Wrote me five separate love notes,

Tucked them inside charismatic envelopes,

Each festooned with a golden Hallmark seal,

And hid them all over my room.

How romantic!

This someone would frequently drop everything,

Jump in their car,

And drive halfway across the state,

Just to spend one day with me.

I thought I had fallen down a well,

And all my wishes were coming true.

The day after my college graduation,

I moved into this person’s apartment.

Naïvely,

We thought we were ready to tackle life together.

Stephen Covey knew better.

Love is verb.

An action.

Not a feeling.

My best friend from high school,

Also freshly graduated from Penn State,

Moved in with us for a short time.

Her words echo in my mind,

“He stands and waits at the door for you to come home from work.

Like a puppy dog.”

True love!

I had achieved my goal.

I loved someone enough that I stole their life away,

And brainwashed them into making me the object of their affection.

So we rode on together, and

Life was pretty good.

For awhile.

Living in the suburbs of Philadelphia gave a new flourish to our lives.

Both kids from country backgrounds,

We reveled in

Concerts, parties, restaurants, shopping, sporting events, day tripping, and outdoor excursions…

Then…something happened.

We both grew discontent with our employment.

Dead end jobs.

Nothing to stimulate our brains.

So one day we parted ways,

With the intention of making things work from a distance.

One of us set off to achieve a dream in law enforcement.

The other set off to pursue a dream of becoming an educator.

For some people, time and space can only make the heart grow fonder for

A limited amount of time.

I don’t recommend trying to make long distance relationships last indefinitely.

Still, it CAN work like crazy for awhile.

We were engaged in the spring.

Infused with bliss, we refused to set plans on something as permanent as a wedding/marriage.

In hindsight, that’s a dangerous move too.

And like the sighting of Hercules, a seasonal constellation in summer,

The engagement was over in the fall.

I was to blame for the failure.

I sunk into a mild depression that lasted almost a year.

In the loneliness of the breakup, I succumbed to the need for redemption.

And, in the next bout of 365 days, my love took me back.

Everything was going to be just like it used to be!

Except that it wasn’t.

It was never the same ever again.

That’s what happens when you are careless with someone else’s heart,

And break their trust.

What a valuable lesson.

I learned the hard way.

Back to love…

It was never really the problem.

The problem turned out to be compatibility.

There is some truth to the cliché “Love is blind.”

When I first stepped foot in the 10 year journey,

I fell in love with handsome, snuggly, and sweet.

I thought those things were enough to fuel longevity.

And if they weren’t,

I believed I would be able to compensate for any other incongruities,

With problem solving.

I never gave an ounce of thought to whether or not we were well-suited for each other.

Love can cloud your vision.

That doesn’t mean I would change a thing about my life.

If I hadn’t traveled through the last decade with this person,

I may not have gone back to acquire my teaching certification.

I highly doubt I would have ever moved to Sullivan County.

And, I certainly wouldn’t have made the plethora of remarkable friends,

That I am graced with now!

Deep conversations with my father are few and far between,

But I will never forget him saying to me,

“You have to accept the other person for who they are.

You have to look carefully at what you are able to live with and what you aren’t.

And, you have to make a decision at that point.”

My mom was also incredibly supportive.

She listened for an infinity of hours without passing judgment.

She knew I had to work this one out on my own.

Fence sitting can only last for so long.

Eventually I had to take the plunge from the safety of my roost.

It wasn’t easy.

History is a hard thing to let go of.

Nostalgia is an easy thing to clutch onto.

But, I soon learned that sometimes it’s better to just make a decision,

Even if it’s not necessarily the right one,

And stick with it for awhile.

Get-to-know the change you’re in for.

Roll around in it and get cozy.

We all have doppelgangers.

The person I was with actually had MANY more things that I liked about them than disliked.

I guess for the last year I just turned into a Debbie Downer.

And I stood and stared at all the things I dreaded,

Blocking out all the good with my tinted Ray Bans.

Until I couldn’t stand the loathing anymore.

Despondently, I lost respect and gave up.

Because of my dreary attitude, I wasn’t worthy of respect either.

Now that I have some distance from my pet peeves,

I don’t mind them as much and I can appreciate

How they made this person a unique and special individual.

I am so happy that we finally saw each other for who we really were,

And accepted our differences in a grown-up way.

When we came upon “two roads that diverged in a yellow wood,”

We thoughtfully chose to each set out on our own path.

The best part is that we still shout out across the forest,

From time to time,

To make sure the other is okay.

In past relationships, I held onto my black and white mentality,

Believing that you couldn’t remain friends with someone

After the fact.

Hogwash!

I am at peace with my past now.

I can remain friends.

I can celebrate the successes,

And offer support for failures,

Even though our lives aren’t so completely intertwined anymore.

This person recently said to me,

“If you ever get married, I will come to your wedding…if you want me to.”

A testament to their character.

For the record,

There are several things about me that I am sure MANY people couldn’t

Tolerate living with day in and day out:

I write extensive lists.

I turn into a nocturnal creature in the summertime.

This is annoying because most people have to work the next day…

Yes, even in the summer.

I can spend hours in bed reading a book,

Or sitting in front of my computer writing, reading, listening and watching.

I can drink a whole pot of coffee.

I don’t have TV...I mean I own a TV, but I don’t subscribe to cable or satellite.

I recently gave up washing my hair every single day.

It’s not healthy.

I am addicted to Pandora radio.

I keep an Amazon wish list.

I sing in the car and the shower.

I enjoy cleaning and decorating.

I use sticky notes…everywhere.

I collect T-shirts from 5k's.

I like to eat onions.

I save greeting cards.

I wear a fuchsia running watch.

It symbolizes the heart I wear on my sleeve.

Just kidding.

Well, sort of.

I can talk for over an hour on the phone with my MOM.

I have a skin pigmentation problem on my back and

Two yellow sunspots in my eyes,

From years of lifeguarding and beach loafing.

I am a nerd.

I smile too much.

I believe in Chinese fortune cookies…because I once received the same fortune TWICE:

“You are of double character: An active socialite and a serious thinker.”

If only I could aspire to those cool types of personality traits…

Now, I just prefer to be an empathetic misfit.

I no longer take pleasure in making a perfect fit with the jigsaw puzzle of life.



That’s a long enough list for now.



This is a long enough post…



Similar to Daily Self-Affirmations with Stuart Smalley, on Saturday Night Live.

OH...and, getting married is no longer at the tippy top of my priority list.

I don’t need a husband or kids to validate WHO I am.

If they happen, I will probably be exultant though.

Another new friend also generously shared their wisdom with me by saying, “Self reliance is good. It’s really important. Especially as a woman. It’s important for generations of women to keep inspiring each other about how great they can be independently.”

Those words sunk deeply into my fabric.

The introspective arrangement of those letters into words were reminiscent of another sensible friend who lives in Shunk, PA and coined it, “The New Manayunk.”

She is modest, yet insightfully progressive with her words,

“Happiness is a choice!”