The Ultimate Law of Life

I sat at my kitchen table, alone.  Food was spread out everywhere.  My crown of thorns was really starting to dig into my forehead, but I realized that I probably deserved it for being so sacrilegious.  I imagined my neighbors glancing in my windows from their houses and thinking, oh God, how weird, our horribly lonely neighbor is sitting all by herself in front of a banquet of food dressed as Jesus on Christmas Eve.

My sister and I had decided a biblical costume party was in order to spice up my family's annual Christmas Eve party.  I helped Alec make a giant Middle Eastern-style spread for the occasion.  We love that kind of food and it is a vegan meal that other people actually like to eat.  And, it was regionally appropriate.  I was relieved when the cars started pulling up.

New Year's Eve came and went and after a feast of beans and greens and Bloody Marys on the first, I began my second annual, thirty day Soberuary.

The calls and emails resumed when the principals returned to the schools after the break and realized they needed to fill some vacancies. I visited a school that I really have had my eye on and got a relatively lukewarm response during an interview for a job I am wildly overqualified for.  I anticipated the classes I am starting next week, embarking on round three of graduate school and two new areas of study.  I accepted an interview from a school practically composed of English Language Learners, located not far from where I grew up.   I randomly decided to apply for a couple of jobs in the district where I started my teaching career, a place I thought I would never consider returning to that surprisingly seemed not so bad now. 

"What are your goals, you know, we know you have a lot of things going on, but what is your, you know, GOAL....." the principal asked a matter of days later, after processing my application and contacting me in record breaking time.
I glanced around the little low rise, old-fashioned school building.
"Well,....."  I said and started laughing.
"I'm just trying to be the best me I can be."
Everyone started laughing.  And then they offered me a job on the spot.