It's always have and never hold
You've begun to feel like home
What's mine is yours to leave or take
What's mine is yours to make your own
The Fray

Looking at couches and rescuing wine racks from the curb (the New Boy, not me.)
Talking about budgets and puppies and who would clean the toilet.
Lives are merging.
In 4 months our names will be on the same lease.
:)

Our current reading/writing unit is poetry. My kids are super in to it, and at the beginning of the unit I brought in some of my writing to share with them. One of the pieces I brought in was a poem I had to write as part of a 'getting to know you' exercise at institute this past summer about the little moments where we come from.
I couldn't help but be reminded of it yesterday as I talked to my niece on the phone. She, in all of her 2 year old glory, laid on the bed, her feet propped up against the wall, and told me an elaborate story about how she was flying a plane with her brother and sister (imaginary, mind you) and saying hello to me as I sat on the clouds. Every story she tells me has something to do with planes. It has a lot to do with the fact that she thinks I live at the airport. Who's to blame her? It's where she's picked me up and dropped me off every time I've come to visit. To her it means I live there. To me it means I'm gone too much....

I'm From...
I'm from snow day secrets
Broken trees and duct tape
From an 'I'll never tell' bond stronger than the blood
That made us sisters

I'm from family get togethers
Cake, laughter, and enough food to feed an army
From unconditional love and support and a group of people
That will forever be my home

*We only had 5 minutes to write...maybe someday I'll finish it...*

Girls Night Out

Bad service and a 50 minute wait even with reservations can't beat laughter and endless amounts of chocolate at what is still one of our favorite restaurants in NYC.
We ate asparagus and fondue and made sparks as we tried to boil water (Dad, you don't even want to know) in moments where we were much too much like our students. We talked about boys and life and love and....not school. We're becoming friends, not collegues, and after nine months, these people finally know me. They know the me here. The Boy here. The life here. It's weird, to feel as if I've been reinvented, yet to feel somehow like I haven't changed, knowing all the while I have.
Every minute of every day is a battle, for all of us. I've been hardened. I've let myself be hardened, not just by the city, but by my job, the city, the breakup with the Old Boy, the distance from my family...the choices that I've made and the questions that ultimately come with sacrifice.
We're all in the same boat. We're fighting to stay who we were before all of this but know that that person is already gone. So instead we're trying to help eachother learn how to leave school at school...to learn that the weekend starts at 2:50 on Fridays and we have first names and we are friends and daughters and girlfriends and sisters and people.
Tonight we succeeded at being people - together. We did not talk about school, and we didn't have to make an effort not to talk about school, it just happened. We are building lives...together.
Hooray for bad service, 50 minute waits, too much chocolate, New Boys, Old Boys, Friday nights, evolution of self, and friends with whom to share the experience.