walking...just keep walking...

i think i already titled on left foot, right foot, so this was a variation on the same theme. walking, progressing, keeping something going forward.

i wonder why it is that my head gets so achy in the late afternoon? we had a busy day trying to cover all of our material (which after re-reading the relevant parts of the well-trained mind i've now decided is so inadequate). it's a lot of stuff. and i'm trying to give them a broad coverage of lots of material, but also challenge them at their appropriate levels. sometimes i am so freaked out by how difficult some of this stuff is for s. and seeing o at such a reasonable, pleasant pace is all the more unnerving. and it's not that i'm comparing them. it's just that n and o, academically, allow me to be so much more fallible. (now, in other areas, say like emotional support, they're fucking tyrants...hehe) anyway, s is just different. he is no less brilliant...he's just different. i just have to keep on my game. not let it get away from me, but also keep improving as i go. it's really been awhile since something has so challenged me personally--made me want to be a better person, work hard. if i could just get someone else to cover the housework part of this gig, i'd be homeschool mama-zilla...

so i've also been thinking a lot about mother teresa. time had an article this month about a book coming out of her personal letters written to confessors about her night, her darkness, her inability to feel God's presence, or jesus' presence....for most of her life working in calcutta. it just stunned me. the first thing i thought of was the indigo girls song, burn all the letters. it made me feel almost sick to think of these letters mother teresa asked her confessors to destroy. yikes, to have them made public. such personal thoughts, pain, feelings...it still makes me a little queasy. but then to think of a woman devoting her life to a force she could not feel because she believed so deeply...it is beautiful to me. but the article is kind of clumsily written and gives some insight into what atheists may argue with this book. there was a line about how mother teresa obviously was forcing herself to believe what she knew in her heart was false...that this book and mother teresa's letters prove there's no God. and that also made me queasy. because i'm fine with different opinions. but i think i feel kind of deeply about mother teresa. since i was a kid, i was really inspired, amazed, awestruck by the depth of her mission, her sacrifice, her devotion. and whether she did it blissfully wrapped in God's embrace or in a darkness because she so longed for the embrace, the truth is that her mission was true. i don't know. been thinking about this for awhile...

ok, i must go run on the treadmill. the longer i stay off, the harder it is to get my ass back on. i will take my global health care book and try to read while i run?... i will just go buy a bottle of wine?... hehe

peace