The Virtue of Waiting

It has been a looooong time since I've been on this blog. So if you've been waiting for a new post, thanks for your patience. If not, thanks for your patience while you read this post. In fact, with the worst segue I could ever make, I'll let you know that's actually what I'll be talking about today: patience.

Often, I find myself repeating the classic adage, "Patience is a virtue," typically in jest to my niece when she cannot wait for cookies to cool down or a friend when we're complaining about waiting for a new album to be released. I find myself constantly throwing around this proverbial phrase without thinking about it. And today, among thinking of other things, I realized it's something I need to remind myself of more often.

You see, today was my day off from work. And for once, my day off from work coincided with a day without plans. Ah, freedom. There were so many possibilities of what I could spend my day doing. Do I sit in bed and spend the next seven hours finishing Making a Murderer on Netflix? Do I begin to pack up my room for moving? And then I saw my sweet little coloring book that I had been waiting to sit down and spend time with.

Last summer, as I spent the afternoon catching up with my friend, Rebecca, I found myself mesmerized by the whimsical pages of Johanna Basford's coloring book that she was working on while we spoke. The pages were intricate and reminded me of my own imagination as a child fueled by faeries and lost gardens. I had asked for one of her coloring books for Christmas. To my surprise, two of my favorite people gave me her books!

The Measuring Stick of Success

Someone I know recently asked: How do you measure success?

One person suggested that they would see themselves as successful when they were featured on Ellen. I found several other people suggesting that success came with happiness.

After this week, I'm not so sure that I would fit my definition in either one of those categories when it comes to success.

Looking into my life from the outside, I am by no accounts successful. I am working a seasonal job at Target. I live with my parents. Yep, I just put that out there and I hate it. It makes me grit my teeth to admit where I am in my life right now. It has left me in a period where I have had to make strides to overcome self-pity along with self-hate. I have had to make strides to see that this point in my life is not a measure of my success.

So here I am again, walking my parent's dog and asking myself: How do I measure success?

Ellen? Happiness? Fulfillment?

Getting Schooled

Two months ago I began a new job as a receptionist at a preschool. I made the decision to leave my job for reasons I won't get into here. As a receptionist, I didn't expect to work so closely with the students, but I ended up in the classrooms nearly everyday. I didn't expect to become attached to these toddlers and preschoolers, but somehow they managed to worm their way into my hard heart and soften it.

On Wednesday, I was helping with the private kindergarten class and as I headed back to the front desk, the entire class came up and collectively hugged me. It was like a giant dogpile of four and five years olds near my knees. *cue heart melting* As I was driving to work yesterday, I was reflecting on the impression that has been made on me these couple months working every day with kids. So here's three life lessons learned from working in a preschool: