This is my last official post for “Mary’s World,” a blog that I created as part of the requirements for my graduate English course in Creativity and Community at IPFW. When first given the assignment my initial reaction was, “What am I going to write about?” But, as it turns out, I managed to come up with ten topics to address in Mary’s World, and I thought I would provide updates here on some of those topics.
“My Destined Path,” my first blog post, was revisited in a creativity paper I just completed for my class. I found these writings to be a part of a healing process I have undergone in the past three-plus years since leaving what I once considered as my “dream job.” When I look back now, it doesn’t hurt so much and it all makes more sense.
“My Air Force Son,” Jonathan, has just returned to Hawaii after serving a six-month solitary deployment in the Philippines. His family has not seen him since last September. His wife and two young daughters have been staying with her parents here in Indiana and have kept in touch by “Skyping” on the computer. That experience may have been the hardest on the baby, who just had her first birthday and doesn’t understand where Daddy went. Every time she saw Daddy on the computer, she either held up her arms to him, in hopes that he would pick her up; or, she would look behind the monitor, thinking Daddy was hiding behind it. Hopefully she won’t get too scared when she finally gets to see him in person once again – she was only seven months old when she last saw him. My son is currently in Hawaii looking for a place for them to live during his final five months of his tour of duty there. The Air Force refuses to provide military housing because of the short time left, and he is having a difficult time finding civilian housing, as many Japanese people have relocated to Hawaii after being displaced by the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in their homeland. Hopefully, Jon will find a decent place that doesn’t cost him all the money he saved by having his wife and daughters stay with family.
“A Family of Overachievers?” has another member who is retiring. My sister Barbara, who works for Boston University, will be leaving her position this spring. She says she is burned out and ready for retirement – or at least ready to be away from her current position, which has become extremely stressful.
“On Veterans, the Military & The Warrior Writers” is wrapping up. This post refers to the Warrior Writers Project that I am working on for a final class project with two of my classmates, Rebecca Roady and Adrian Rivera. We have received a few submissions, writing workshops are planned, and I will soon be extremely busy putting the pages of the book together so we can turn it in to our professor. It has been harder than expected to get people to participate, but I am confident we have enough contributors to make it worthwhile. The final anthology will be well worth our efforts!
“The Paper Shuffle: Stackers, Sorters & Shufflers” is a timely topic to return to. With all of the late-semester assignments and papers I have been working on for my graduate-level classes, the desk in my home office has quite an assortment of stacks. When I’m looking for a particular piece of paper, I kind of resemble that lady frantically climbing up the stack of papers in the artwork I included with my original post.
As a final note, even though I often dreaded having to write these blog posts, in looking back I realize it has been fun as well as therapeutic. Thank you, Dr. Cain, for the opportunity to grow and reflect!
