Monday, May 19, 2014

Let It Go...

No, this is not a Frozen post.  I've only seen the movie once, and wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be.  I'll chalk that up to my daughters telling me it was the MOST AMAZING DISNEY MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!! Never underestimate the negative power of overestimation.





This is a post about calming down.  Not something I'm good at.  But something I've had to learn to do more recently.  I admit it.  I am a control freak.  That's part of the reason I love teaching - because I have control over my classroom from how the seats are arranged to who sits where to what books the kids are reading over the summer.  So this whole moving across the world thing and being at the mercy of a government office doesn't necessarily sit well with me.  I posted last Monday about a list of things I wanted to achieve last week. I haven't done any of them.  Granted, the baby is going through a new Wonder Weeks leap and is all mommy, all the time, but still, I'm disappointed in myself for not finding the motivation to do the work.  I will try harder this week, and hopefully Aurelia will cooperate.

I cannot control everything.  I can only control my reactions to what happens to me.  I choose to do this positively when I can.  We're going through a stressful period right now in my house, and how we handle ourselves now says a lot about who we are as a family.  My ex-husband chose to have me served with papers to modify child support and it hit me hard. Not because I didn't know it was coming, but because 1) I thought we were going to handle this maturely and face to face, 2) because it was the first time I saw in black and white that he was serious about keeping Marley and 3) because all the paperwork was in his new wife's handwriting.  With the loving guidance of Jon, I managed to get over that hurdle on Saturday and move on in a positive way.

On a different note, I told my students about my move last week.  They were excited and had lots of questions, but in general, they were extremely understanding about the Middle East.  It's amazing how so many prejudices get established so quickly, but at the same time, can be quashed easily at their age.  I only got a couple of "terrorist" remarks before I managed to establish with them that the UAE is a very safe, very modern country where yes, the government is run by Muslims, but it is tolerant of other cultures and religions as well.

Ending positively, I wanted to list some of the things I'm most looking forward to doing when I get to the UAE:

Meeting my students and fellow faculty members
Shopping at Lulu's Hypermarket (an experience not to be missed, according to many bloggers)
Going to the Burj Khalifa
Seeing the Formula One races
Watching my husband learn to play rugby
Hearing the call to prayer
Not worrying about paying rent or bills (this resonates right now especially)
Not worrying about Aurelia being at day care
Seeing camels in the back of cars
Enjoying the more laid-back style that is the UAE system

Guess I'll have to learn how to let it go...


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