Far West

Sunset at Far West

As my faithful readers know, I'm going through a huge life change and not a good one--not one I'd recommend for anyone. I have good days and bad days. I have days when I'm amazed at my own strength and days when the slightest disturbance in the force can turn me into a puddle of tears. Today was one of the latter.
My school year has been going much smoother than last year. I have the middle school routines and hormones mostly figured out. I have tried to create a more structured classroom than last year and so far things have been going well.
My biggest concern this school year is tension among the other teachers I am with the most. They are all really great people and great teachers but tend to avoid conflict. Now don't get me wrong, avoiding conflict is generally a good thing, but when issues need to be discussed and decisions need to be made sometimes there's conflict--and that's ok. But when we all skirt around each other never expressing ourselves, the pile of egg shells we must walk over gets too deep for me. I doubt I can accurately describe the stress I feel about the dynamics of our team but needless to say, I feel tension that can only be cut with an extra-large butcher knife. So today the dysfunction overwhelmed me and I left the meeting in not-very-well-concealed tears.
After arriving home, the tears resurfaced so I decided to take a drive to avoid a full melt-down in front of Lindsey and Jordan. My drive led me to the closest thing we have for a temple in the area--the Far West temple site. I happen to live only a few miles from the site and it is a pleasant drive, especially today. It was early evening, warm and balmy. Usually I don't like the sticky feeling but I guess it matched my mood.
The temple site is located in green, rolling hills of farmland. It's on a small county road with little traffic. I was there for an hour and only one car passed by. The cornerstones are all that remain because that's as far as the saints got before leaving Missouri. There's a large stone monument proclaiming the Far West site as sacred and quoting some scriptures from the Doctrine and Covenants about Far West. There's also other information about the area. Sitting there, far from the distractions of city life, it's hard to imagine that the area was once a thriving community of 5,000.

Many things occurred to me while sitting on holy ground. My tears were not so much over the dysfunction of my job but mostly over the dysfunction of my life. I've made some poor choices that have led to where I'm at. I've also have to live with the choices of others that I can't control. I never expected to be where I'm at in life right now either physically in Missouri or in my personal situation. I can't change the past but I can make the best of the present and build a better future. I have many blessings to be grateful for, including, most importantly, my children.
I'm sure the early saints felt some of the same feelings of disappointment and discouragement in life not turning out like they had hoped. I have many pioneer ancestors; I am proud of that heritage. But I've also felt very strongly that that heritage in no way entitles me to a free pass. I can't coast on their accomplishments; I must forge my own way and I'm probably going to have more tears and bad days. My sister Judy told me that when something huge/emotional happens there's a finite amount of tears to be shed and it doesn't matter what a person cries over but those tears need to get out. So I'm not sure how many more tears I have to go but I'll continue to take life one day at a time.