BFTD

Yes, back from the dead in more ways than one. Most notably, I’m reviving the blog, and I’m doing so because I pledged to in exchange for friendship. Though that was over a month ago, and while plenty of events occurred between the time the promise was made and now—I’ll definitely be writing about those occurrences here, including one that pertains to the title of this post—there was still more than enough time during that stretch to get this going again. And I don’t want to make any more promises about continuing the blog, though I should since I’m supposed to be writing anyway, but I’m going to try my damnedest to post on a somewhat regular basis.

So. Before I write about the things that occupied my time and headspace in the past month plus, a brief recap of just some of the major life events since my last post:

I got two more teaching jobs, including fulltime work at UW-River Falls, where I had my own office and the first inklings of job security. The students were great, and while the materials I had to work with were somewhat regimented, I still had the freedom to bring in additional lesson materials and tailor the course work and class time to my teaching style. Then Governor Walker stripped the UW system of $300 million dollars, which put a nearly 20% gaping hole in River Fall’s budget, so all of the adjuncts in my department were let go, including me.

Kate and I got married. It happened while I was still teaching, and she was still at her first major cooking job, as a sous chef at a farm to table restaurant. Neither of us were making too much money, enough to start paying down our student loans and build some savings, so we kept the wedding simple, getting married at City Hall in Minneapolis in front of family and a few close friends before trekking over to a bowling alley owned and operated by a local brewery, where more of our friends joined us. My mom had a great time—she even high-fived my dad after scoring a mark—and decided to recreate the reception in Illinois, where extended family and hometown friends could come and celebrate.

Then Kate and I bought a house in St. Paul, which turned out to be a mini culture shock, because St. Paul is much different than Minneapolis. The most notable part of the home-buying process occurred when, a week before our purchase was scheduled to close, I found out that River Falls would not be renewing my contract for the following year. The only school that had work for me was in Mankato—about an hour and a half south of the Cities—and it was only one class, which would have paid me $5K over a four-month period. Not enough money to afford a mortgage payment, utilities, student loan payments, and other basic expenses.

So I got a job at a mortgage company. The husband of a former co-worker of Kate’s worked in the industry, and I had had several conversations with him whenever Kate’s restaurant had employee parties where spouses and family members were invited. Prior to going to grad school, I spent three years at a now-defunct mortgage company, so he and I had that in common. When I got word that my contract wouldn’t be renewed, I called him up and asked if he had anything for me. He did, but it was entry level in skill and pay, which didn’t matter to me at the time; I was desperate. Even so, I started at an almost identical salary to what I was making as a teacher, I didn’t have to drive around the state to work each day, and I was only working half the hours—none of which had to be worked from home, which meant when I was done with work, I would be free to do other non-work related things. Like writing.

And for a while, I did write. I just looked at my writing folders from 2015 (when this occurred) and I wrote a lot of words. Same in 2016. 2017, not as much, and I’ve concentrated on writing and playing music more in 2018—something I regret not keeping up with, though I have been unable to stop coming up with new songs since I started up again. I did get a story published in 2012, and I was a finalist for a writing competition in 2013—the year I got the teaching job in River Falls, where I averaged 80 hours a week between working in the classroom/at school and planning/grading at home, which led to me producing the least amount of writing since before I went to grad school. Even though I haven’t been writing as much this year as I did the past three, I’m writing more than I did when I was at peak teaching capacity.

Plus, I recently got a personalized rejection letter—most are automated, unless the editors actually liked what you wrote—from a pretty big magazine for a story I submitted two years ago. They said that each issue since I submitted it (spanning the release of six issues), my story was put into the maybe pile until ultimately they decided there wouldn’t be room for it in the magazine and it wasn’t fair to keep me wondering about its future with the publication. The rejection letter was almost as long as the story I wrote: that is almost unheard of.

Honestly, that rejection letter gave me a glimmer of hope, that I shouldn’t give up on writing. I think getting back into blogging could lead to me maintaining a regular writing routine. I still have stories to tell and love seeing where the process takes me. I don’t want to look back after another five years and find myself feeling regret for not sticking with it, the same way I did with my music sabbatical. I’ll keep you posted. And here’s hoping that the next post doesn’t take another month+.