Last Day at School

I woke up perfectly at 5:30am central time. I've trained myself well to wake to the alarm of my watch. At least I will not dread the mornings. I highly recommend getting yourself ready for the early morning wake-ups if you are not already!

I did not make today a "light" day or a fun day. Although I will have a lot of fun anyway. I am spending the entire day doing what I love - teaching. I literally won't even have breaks. I'd figured I would offer to help facilitate the training program for new international teaching assistants this week - mind as well do what I absolutely love my last days here and remember what I hope to come home to.

Tonight I'm going to dinner and then a movie - a comedy. I can still live in the day - the moment - when I need to.

On Monday morning, my life will change forever. There is no book written for what that change will be for me and I'm going to keep believing that there is a positive purpose for my imprisonment, for the fact that I am needing to be at FMC Carswell.

At the time my life fell apart five years ago, I did not know these things, yet I now know there was a purpose then as well. I was supposed to get the help I needed and I was supposed to help others. I was supposed to meet T.S., Sporty, Survivor and others and down the road, I was supposed to come to terms with my past and my "family." I was supposed to discover a new career and engage in learning on a new level. Had I not gone through the difficult and unknown, none of that would exist for me today.

So, five years later, I'm being told to strip myself again -literally and figuratively - of everything I know and go through the difficult and unknown. I cannot know what will exist for me on the other side of this experience I am about to endure, but I will endure it, there will be an other side, and one day I will share with all of you once again that we must walk through these experiences in order to look back on them, reflect, and realize the gifts that we actually gained along the way.