A Good Feeling

I have been through hell in my life, as has been documented in this blog before. But, here I am at this point, both personally and professionally happy. I worked hard to get here. I had a lot of help, but I worked hard to get here. So, I guess this is a 8 week early Thanksgiving post. I am thankful for all I have gotten and the luck that has crossed my path. I should have been dead the day I was born, not to mention other times when there were some close calls. I have been accused in this calendar year of only caring about myself. I cop to that. Why should I lie? Those who know me, likely see it. They know it. I've always been ego-centric. It stems from the feeling that I need to take care of me. From an early age my parents instilled, if not demanded due to work conditions, that we be responsible for out well being and that we take ownership. I had to look out for me. I grew up short, light-weight, and easily stepped on. If I didn't watch out for me, I wouldn't have made it here alive. I don't apologize for it, I don't expect you to understand it, but I do expect you to embrace it because it is who I am, it's how I am able to survive in this cold, dark world. I want to thank the many doctors, nurses, medical technicians, hospital launderers, and my few family and friends who have guided me along this path. This righteous path that led to a young man who hated himself, who though himself unworthy of love, unworthy of anything, came out the dark end of a tunnel that brought me to redemption. As I enter my 7th, yes 7th, year of teaching I find myself professionally in a solid place where I am more often than not happy with my teaching than disgusted with my teaching. I will never strive to be perfect, I don't think that highly of myself to ever be at that place. But, I am in a place where I feel respected, and if not understood for my oddities that have come out at work since the transplant as I left my hair down, I am accepted as a person who is a professional. Finally, I find myself madly in love with a woman three thousand miles away from me. It's the biggest source of angst and frustration in my life, which is to say, my life is fabulous. My sister will meet her during xmas vacation and I expect they will get along splendidly, if not too splendidly as I expect to take the brunt of the barbs. As I get to the end of this pst I just have to say for those searching, not for their soulmate, but for just something as simple as happiness, that it is out there. I hope it finds you. Take it from someone who was for a long time neck deep in self-loathing despair, even depression... it gets better.