Wishing Upon A Star

I don’t deal well with change. At least not with change that’s out of my control.

I’m fine with change that I’ve instigated, and while I may be nervous starting a new job or meeting new people, I get over it quickly and adjust to the change.

When it’s out of my control I don’t do as well.

So what has precipitated this introspection?

I’ve been in contact with various people at school, and all sorts of changes are happening. Both in terms of personnel and in the facility. It’s going to stink.

The biggest change was finding out that Connie, the most amazing teacher’s assistant, is moving to Arizona. This is totally out of the blue and has really rattled me. That’s the last of our assistants. This is likely to mean that we will start the school year seriously understaffed.

I’m not sure I could dread this year any more than I already do.

I blew off rehearsal tonight, and am sitting here drinking wine.

To anyone who knows me this is a red flag. I NEVER drink alone. I barely drink when I go out. At most I’ll have one blue drink. (I love blue drinks, doesn’t matter what’s in it as long as it’s blue.) So I’m sitting here drinking a sweet fruity wine of some kind, and feeling a bit woozy. It’s going done very easily and as a consequence too quickly.

(God bless spell check. But if you do happen to read this and notice some really glaring errors please let me know. I’ll fix ‘em when I’m a bit more together.)

I stopped drinking at home alone many, many years ago. When I first got my own apartment I realized that I was coming to look forward to a drink or glass of wine each evening, and decided this was not a good thing. My father was a closet alcoholic and we had many painful evenings at home because of it, and I know that I have an addictive type of personality. (Which explains my serious weight problem. I’m clearly addicted to food and especially sweets. Chocolate is my friend.) So I decided I needed to not drink at all if I was alone.

If I were to confess that I was consuming an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, no one would bat an eye. They’d figure I was sad or upset about something, but that I’d be over it quickly. If they heard I was drinking alone they’d send in the Marines

…hmmm…that might be fun actually.

Today was stressful. The state of Massachusetts has a new method of torturing teachers, it’s called recertification. We had to collect all sorts of points by attending workshops and taking classes, then fill out all this stupid paperwork and ship it off to the department of ed. Along with a check. The amount it cost varied according to the number of certifications you had to renew. Mine socked me for $125. They cashed my check months ago, but sent a letter telling me that the original area of certification I claimed to have was a lie. I was not a certified special education teacher.

Odd. I’ve been doing it for twenty-three years…

So I hauled out the certificate stating I was certified and tried calling the number they had sent me. It took almost two hours to get through to a person. I’d call the number and it would either disconnect or tell me that all thirty-six operators were busy. I found that hard to believe. In any case, I finally connected with a human who had a rudimentary understanding of the English language. It was my job to convince him that I did hold that certification.