wrapping up
Aug. 14th, 2003 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrypurple73Today was my last day at the Truempis, and it came and went. Only not nearly that smoothly. In the two days I spent there this week, I cried three times. And that total is only including the times from their house. It was hard to say goodbye today. I’ve never really had to prepare kids before for me leaving. And every time I’d try the past week or so, I’d tear up. But hey, that’s what Theresas do. We all know it. We had a little party last Friday, since it was my last day to see Hannah before she went off to camp for this week. I brought M&M cookies for dessert after lunch, we had popcorn and pop for an afternoon snack, and I bought them each a book. I got Hannah (who’s almost 8) Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Hugh (who is almost 6) got Dr. Suess’s Wacky Wednesday. Sophia, the three-year-old, got I Love to Cuddle, and baby Ben (he’s 6 months) got a book about colors that’s made out of foamy stuff, so he can chew on it to his heart’s content. And for Barb/the family I got Love You Forever. Needless to say, I was pretty proud of my selections. :) But that didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye today. I’ve spent forty hours a week with these kids (and Barb) this summer. I’ve watched them grow up, even just over the last few months. I’ve known Ben for a third of his life, really. Even Sophia has grown up a lot. And they’ve all grown on me.
In all my cleaning and sorting and whatnot in my room over the past few days, I came across the journal I kept the summer after senior year. The only journal I kept that summer was a blue notebook full of my rantings about working in the corporate world. I remembered a lot of the entries, but like always, there were some that I’d forgotten about. I wrote one day about when a woman from the department next to accounting brought her two kids in for a visit. I actually was doing work at the time- a real assignment of boxing up a bunch of files- but all I wanted to do was drop every file folder I had and run over to play with those kids. They were probably about 4, and I wrote about how I just had to have a job with kids the next summer. And now, that’s how I’ve spent my last three summers, surrounded by one of the kinds of people who always energize me. Because even when Benny has poop up to his armpits, or when Phia throws her new book from me across the kitchen, or when Hannah is in tears over something seemingly trivial, or when Huston shrieks the moment I tell him the baby just went to sleep- I still love those kids a lot, and I know how amazing they are. I know how much they are capable of, and I’m always surprisingly pleased at how much they can do and feel.
Last night, Jenn and I went out to Caribou, but also hung out here and chatted for a while. About ten minutes before she was supposed to show up, I burst out sobbing while I sat in my room. The trigger was nothing, exactly. Nothing specific. Just another example of the bouts of emotional-wreck-ness that I turn into before I leave. Jenn showed up as I was trying to calm myself down, and then was polite enough to chat with my mom for a bit downstairs before coming up and talking with me here in my room for an hour before we even left for Caribou. But we had some good conversation, and I appreciated it. She and Annette and I are going out to dinner on Friday, my last night in town. I sent an email to Jon and Pickle, inviting both of them to come along if they would like to. I haven’t heard from either of them in a few weeks, so.... We’ll see what happens.
I wrote a letter/note to Khodai last night as well, and mailed it this morning. The new rule I am announcing to everyone is that if you are going to move, have a phone number. Or maybe some way that I can keep in contact with you. Email? Phone number? Anything? I called his parents over the weekend, and his dad gave me Khodai’s new address. That’s better than nothing. It just felt nice to write to him, tell him things that have been going on in my life and how I’m feeling about everything. At one point I said:
I guess sometimes, I just think that I suck at adjustments. Hearing my family tell me that it’s healthy to be upset when I leave someplace doesn’t really make it any easier to go. It’s great to feel at home in more than once place, but not when you have to move between them, back and forth for four years. It’s great to love the people you live with, but not when you have to say goodbye to them. I said goodbye to some of the people I lived with this past year, and I don’t know that I’ll ever see some of them again. How do you go from living with someone to wishing them well as they leave for South America for two or three years? And how do I go back to those houses, excited to live with a bunch of new people, when some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met aren’t there anymore? The point is, that part where I turn into an emotional wreck is creeping back, and I’m not as well-held-together as I’d like to think sometimes.
That’s kind of how things are going these days.
I’ve put the volunteer-program-searching on hold for the time being. I got responses from the three places I’ve requested information from, so I need to read over the material. But lately I’ve been concentrating on my bedroom and all the clutter that it stores so well. Two grocery bags full of paper have been filled to the brim and sent to the new recycling bin. And I found the journal I’d been missing for nearly a year, which was a relief. Of course, I found it in a tub of things in the basement, which was not a relief to re-find. Goody, more things to sort through. But it does feel good to have so many drawers and boxes at least uncluttered for the time being. They are organized (the boxes) or else empty (the drawers). This is definite progress, considering I leave in two days. And considering that I have not done nearly enough packing. Oh good lord.
Shannon and I hung out tonight with Mrs. Strampe, aka my English-teacher-soulmate. The woman helped us on numerous occasions survive high school, and she still has time for us these days as well. She suggested we meet at a (new, hip and happening) coffee shop in Eden Prairie, so Shannon and I ventured there. We sat around for a half hour (all of us sipping our non-coffee drinks) before the place closed, and then we stood outside with the mosquitoes for nearly another hour. It’s so pleasing when teachers, people who are supposed to have some sort of authoritative position compared to students in high school, will meet up with you six years after you’ve had them in class and chat it up like always. Stramps has always been like that, though.
In all my cleaning and sorting and whatnot in my room over the past few days, I came across the journal I kept the summer after senior year. The only journal I kept that summer was a blue notebook full of my rantings about working in the corporate world. I remembered a lot of the entries, but like always, there were some that I’d forgotten about. I wrote one day about when a woman from the department next to accounting brought her two kids in for a visit. I actually was doing work at the time- a real assignment of boxing up a bunch of files- but all I wanted to do was drop every file folder I had and run over to play with those kids. They were probably about 4, and I wrote about how I just had to have a job with kids the next summer. And now, that’s how I’ve spent my last three summers, surrounded by one of the kinds of people who always energize me. Because even when Benny has poop up to his armpits, or when Phia throws her new book from me across the kitchen, or when Hannah is in tears over something seemingly trivial, or when Huston shrieks the moment I tell him the baby just went to sleep- I still love those kids a lot, and I know how amazing they are. I know how much they are capable of, and I’m always surprisingly pleased at how much they can do and feel.
Last night, Jenn and I went out to Caribou, but also hung out here and chatted for a while. About ten minutes before she was supposed to show up, I burst out sobbing while I sat in my room. The trigger was nothing, exactly. Nothing specific. Just another example of the bouts of emotional-wreck-ness that I turn into before I leave. Jenn showed up as I was trying to calm myself down, and then was polite enough to chat with my mom for a bit downstairs before coming up and talking with me here in my room for an hour before we even left for Caribou. But we had some good conversation, and I appreciated it. She and Annette and I are going out to dinner on Friday, my last night in town. I sent an email to Jon and Pickle, inviting both of them to come along if they would like to. I haven’t heard from either of them in a few weeks, so.... We’ll see what happens.
I wrote a letter/note to Khodai last night as well, and mailed it this morning. The new rule I am announcing to everyone is that if you are going to move, have a phone number. Or maybe some way that I can keep in contact with you. Email? Phone number? Anything? I called his parents over the weekend, and his dad gave me Khodai’s new address. That’s better than nothing. It just felt nice to write to him, tell him things that have been going on in my life and how I’m feeling about everything. At one point I said:
I guess sometimes, I just think that I suck at adjustments. Hearing my family tell me that it’s healthy to be upset when I leave someplace doesn’t really make it any easier to go. It’s great to feel at home in more than once place, but not when you have to move between them, back and forth for four years. It’s great to love the people you live with, but not when you have to say goodbye to them. I said goodbye to some of the people I lived with this past year, and I don’t know that I’ll ever see some of them again. How do you go from living with someone to wishing them well as they leave for South America for two or three years? And how do I go back to those houses, excited to live with a bunch of new people, when some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met aren’t there anymore? The point is, that part where I turn into an emotional wreck is creeping back, and I’m not as well-held-together as I’d like to think sometimes.
That’s kind of how things are going these days.
I’ve put the volunteer-program-searching on hold for the time being. I got responses from the three places I’ve requested information from, so I need to read over the material. But lately I’ve been concentrating on my bedroom and all the clutter that it stores so well. Two grocery bags full of paper have been filled to the brim and sent to the new recycling bin. And I found the journal I’d been missing for nearly a year, which was a relief. Of course, I found it in a tub of things in the basement, which was not a relief to re-find. Goody, more things to sort through. But it does feel good to have so many drawers and boxes at least uncluttered for the time being. They are organized (the boxes) or else empty (the drawers). This is definite progress, considering I leave in two days. And considering that I have not done nearly enough packing. Oh good lord.
Shannon and I hung out tonight with Mrs. Strampe, aka my English-teacher-soulmate. The woman helped us on numerous occasions survive high school, and she still has time for us these days as well. She suggested we meet at a (new, hip and happening) coffee shop in Eden Prairie, so Shannon and I ventured there. We sat around for a half hour (all of us sipping our non-coffee drinks) before the place closed, and then we stood outside with the mosquitoes for nearly another hour. It’s so pleasing when teachers, people who are supposed to have some sort of authoritative position compared to students in high school, will meet up with you six years after you’ve had them in class and chat it up like always. Stramps has always been like that, though.
