You ever wonder what you would do if you could live your life all over again, knowing what you know now?? If you had complete knowledge of how life works and unlimited resources with which to achieve your goals? Would you be something completely different, or would you choose the same life path?
Now don't get me wrong. I am pretty satisfied with my life right at this exact moment in time. There are things I want still, but on the whole I am pretty cool with my life. I adore substitute teaching. I love the fact that it is teaching in it's purest form without the worry and hassle of grading papers and dealing with parents and the long list of stresses that regular classroom teachers deal with each day. I am especially proud of the fact that teachers will call me on their cell phones and chase me down the hallway asking if I am available. I have worked hard to cultivate a reputation as someone who can just be thrown into a classroom cold, handed a curriculum book, and handle any class with professionalism and grace. (wow, way to toot my own horn there. lol That came out surprisingly vain for a sec there, sorry) VERY long story short: I feel like I was really meant to do this all along. And I especially love being in a new classroom every day, having new adventures with new children I may have not met before.
But what if I was able to be someone different. Maybe just for a little while. If you had asked me this question last year, my answer would have been this: I would become a meteorologist. Maybe on The Weather Channel. This is in no small part due to my raging love for both Jim Cantore and the entire Weather Channel itself. (Don't believe me. This: http://www.xomba.com/ten_ways_tell_if_you_are_addicted_weather_channel and this: http://www.xomba.com/weather_watching_hobby might convince you. Both written with love by me!)
But today I have a very different idea of what I would do. This idea was perhaps born from being trapped in the house since September without a car of my own, or maybe from currently reading "Eat, Pray, Love" or I suppose from multiple viewings of "Mamma Mia", but I think in my alternate life I would like to be a travel writer. I would travel the world having adventures and then writing about them. Given that the temperature outside hasn't risen above 40 degree in almost a month, I would probably start by traveling to somewhere warm, and then go from there. Doesn't that sound like a very exciting life to lead? Travelling to distant and exotic places, meeting new and different people, and then being paid to write about it? I suspect I would probably take to such a lifestyle very nicely if my reasons for loving substitute teaching are any indication. I appear to have a itch for adventure, no matter how small.
For the past two years, my in-laws have taken us on vacation in leu of Christmas gifts. We have been on a caribbean cruise and traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula. Both times I had a marvelous time soaking in the local atmosphere, speaking in my pathetic Spanish to natives, and revelling in the opportunity to experience life through a different set of parameters. I would love to travel beyond the Western Hemisphere and perhaps visit Wales, France, Spain, Greece, and India. (I am sooo loving this book: Eat, Pray, Love. Totally read it if you ever get the chance.) If I could visit all of these places, and get paid to do it, it seems like the perfect deal. The best of all possible situations to live in.
But as I think about it, I am not sure such a lifestyle, as exciting as it may be, would be conducive to raising two little children. And I love having my children. So maybe, despite my yearning for foreign adventure, I am living exactly the life I am supposed to be. Maybe I will get a chance to visit all the places I want to in my life, I think the slow, plodding path to them is my path after all. That way, I get to take my adorable babies with me.
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