calendars

I realized, as another school year is about to start, that I have lived my whole life based on a calendar that runs from August through July, rather than January through December. First as a student, then as a teacher, and now as a part of school staff, I have based my entire life on the academic calendar. How strange to think of life in a different world, where time is measured in other ways.

OK, so it's not such a major thing. But I guess that this all came to light after talking with a high school friend recently. My life has turned out so different from how I thought it would be...not in a bad way, but just so very different from the life I had envisioned for myself. Through the magic of Facebook, I've hooked up with many faces and names from the past, and it's forced me to look at who I am and who I have become through interacting with them. So many of them are doing exactly what they set out to do in life...following some incredible plan. Me? I feel like I am often swept along with the tide, and drift where it might take me. I drifted into marriage, floated from college major to college major, and fell into teaching. It's the first landing that stuck, and made sense to me.

I can't help but wonder how some of us know from the beginning what we want to do with our lives, and others figure it out as time goes by. My friends who go by their January to December calendars and have had it all figured out from the beginning, well, sometimes I get jealous of them. They knew who they were from the time that they were born. I'm still figuring it out.

So, if I flow through life hanging on semester by semester, maybe it's these small chunks of time that can make sense to me. On the other hand, what a wonderful way to live - unlike those whose jobs are 12 months a year, I get a chance to start over once every year. To reinvent what I do, and how I'm going to do it. And in doing so, I get to reinvent myself. Wow.