Thoughts I Had This Week

On Teaching

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to see a Broadway play for free with my students (I guess my job has perks sometimes). It was magical. We went to see "On Your Feet" and it was really well done. Most of my students didn't know who Gloria Estefan was, but they were able to connect with the culture so well that they were engaged anyway. Some of the dialogue was in Spanish, which made the faces of my bilingual students light up. I told them they probably understood more of the play than I did, which created some super cute and bashful smiles.

However, during intermission, I (of course) had about 87 students who needed to use the bathroom, "badly Ms. Herbig!" So there I was, with a herd of 5th grade girls running to the bathroom to try and get in and out before the second half started. However, one little baby of mine decided that she absolutely could not use the bathroom because "everyone could hear her!" She walked in the stall and right back out, shaking her head and saying, "I can't do it!" I knew she had to go desperately, but this poor girl would rather suffer a full bladder for the next 4 hours than run the risk of a stranger hearing her pee.

So, that's how I found myself holding the stall door ("...because what if it opens Ms. Herbig?!") and loudly singing the ABCs in front of a group of total strangers while this girl peed her heart out.

And that's the kind of stuff they don't teach you about in college.

On Mothers

I am organizationally challenged. It has been a condition I have suffered from since birth, and I like to lump it in the same category as my bad handwriting because I consider it to be the mark of a creative soul and feel less bad about it (insert eye roll here).

Regardless, I am out-of-my-mind disorganized. My mind is disorganized (which is why I think writing is so necessary for me, because it gives me the opportunity organize my thoughts). My things are disorganized (which is actually kind of nice sometimes, because I'll loose things, forget about them, so finding them is like a present). And my life is disorganized (I often struggle to do things in a way that makes sense and will move on to new tasks before I finish the first one). It can be annoying and irritating, but it's who I am, and I have been getting better with age.

However, I am still a mess a lot of the time, and there is only one person in this world who has ever been able to make sense of my chaos, and that is my mother. Wherever I got this messy gene from, it was not her. This woman can come into my life and leave it categorized, labeled, and in complete order.

I'm moving soon, and I am in the process of going though a mountain of stuff from a past life. I needed my mother.

So, I begged her to come down, and without a second thought she took a few days off from work and hopped on a train to the city. I took her to my favorite restaurant, my favorite pub (where she met my favorite bartenders), we walked in Central Park, we watched movies... it was perfect.

But the most magnificent thing happened while I was at work on Monday. I came home to an apartment that was completely organized, cleaned, and bleached. I had never seen my sink and bathroom that white (before you get grossed out, I clean both often, but I had never thought to use BLEACH). My whole apartment smelled like a swimming pool. All of my things were in complete order and ready to be packed or donated. What a fucking gift that woman is.

Is there something in the hormones when you get pregnant gives you a super-human ability to make your child's life perfect again?

I hope so, because otherwise my future kids have no shot.

On Psychics

Growing up, my mother and aunt had this psychic named Deanna, and they worshipped her. I always heard stories of the stuff she would tell them and how they would eventually come true, whether they believed it at the time or not. Deanna predicted things about my family that were freakily accurate.

So, I've always had a pretty healthy view of psychics. I obviously know that there are frauds out there, but I also believe that there are some psychics who can give us guidance and advice in a way that average people cannot. I'm not saying that everyone should go see a psychic and blindly follow everything they tell you. Free choice is still a thing, and you have the right to fuck up your life in whatever way you choose. However, I do believe that you can use your best judgement and what you already know about yourself to find some clarity though a psychic.

I've always wanted to try a psychic reading of my own, and my life has been particularly confusing lately. So, I finally went on January 31st, 2017.

Funnily enough, I had originally made an appointment with her in October, while I was going through a rough time, but I cancelled last minute because I was afraid of what she was going to tell me. Which, in hindsight, showed me that you should always trust your gut about things. I knew a lot more about my life and what was happening than I let myself believe.

Anyway, after a few months of hell had ended, I was finally ready, no... more than ready. My heart was open again for the first time in a long time, and I needed some serious guidance and clarity.

I am telling you from this personal experience, there are psychics that are the real deal, and mine was of them. This woman knew almost everything about how I had been feeling, and knew intimate details about my relationships. She was even able to quote things that were said to me! She knew about a journal entry that I had written in January 2016, and told me to go back to what I written, because I am "not as blindsided as I am pretending to be." She was absolutely right. How. The hell. Could she have guessed that.

She also knew a lot about my relationship with writing. She said I can express myself better through writing (rather than speaking) because my thoughts get all mixed up. She knew that writing has always been my therapy, and something I do when I am stressed out or depressed. She even told me that my spirit guides said I was "good at writing" (aw, thanks guys).

She spent the most time on my career though, which was fitting because I have been having one of the most difficult school years of my life. She was spot on when she explained how I've been feeling and why. She described my strengths and weaknesses perfectly, as if she knew me and had been working with me for years. She even knew that I had been considering switching careers for some time, and told me that I shouldn't. She gave me guidance about the future of my career, where she saw happiness and more of a leadership role, which has given me a goal and a pathway to a better career life.

I walked out of her apartment feeling lighter and happier than I had been in a long time. Her reassurance that things didn't work out because they weren't supposed to work out, and that things are going to be rough for a while, but happiness is in my future, gave me the peace I needed.

She knew a lot about my past, but also gave me a few predictions about my future, so whether or not she is right about those remains to be seen.

But just in case she is right, here's a quick shout out to my future hubby, whose name has a D in it, I'll see you in a couple of years. 😉