Sometimes, I look around at my new life and think, "how the hell did I get here?!" If you would have told me five years ago that I would be living off a dirt road, teaching in a small town on the border of Ohio and West Virginia AND be engaged to a guy I went to highschool with, I would have thought you were crazy. No seriously, I would have actually been concerned about your mental stability.
But here I am, and the weird part? I kind of like it.
My life in Chicago was fun, fast-paced and sometimes, totally overwhelming. I moved there right after high school in hopes of getting as far away from high school and Ohio, with plans to never look back. Funny right?
After four years of exploring, partying and working in the city's toughest neighborhood I had plans to run from Chicago too. I had a job lined up in San Francisco, friends moving all across the country and a long-term relationship that sent me constantly teetering between complete panic and total comfort. What did I do? In very me fashion, I spazzed.
The night before I was supposed to board my early morning flight to San Francisco, I called the school and quit. Within a week I had broken it off with a guy of four years and had moved back home to Columbus, Ohio. I had no car, no real place to stay and no long term plans past a job with Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools, in the Hilltop neighborhood on the city's West side.
Over the next couple years I got my life back in order. I got a full time teaching job, made great new friends while reconnecting with old. I met my future husband, (yes, we graduated high school together and didn't meet until 4 years after) and completed my masters.
Now here we are. I'm 9 weeks in to my 3rd year of teaching, trying to adjust to the culture shock of living outside a city for the first time in my life, Clint's successfully navigating his first year of medical school and I'm planning a wedding filled with groomsmen who I spent four years in high school ignoring because I was so caught up in my big escape plan of getting the fuck out of there.
And, I'm happy.
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