YOUR DREAM HOUSE
I'm not a dream house kind of person. What I mean by that is that I've never thought a lot about what would make the perfect house. I've lived in 6 houses in my life (2 in childhood and 4 in adulthood) and what has been most important about each one has been WHO I have been living with. I can certainly come up with a list of what I have liked best and least about each place, but all of that is highly colored by the life I was living in each one.
It's not such a satisfying answer, but it's the truth. If asked today which house I liked best I would tell you the one I'm in right now. It is a lovely house and perfect for the four of us, but the reason I love it is not so much that it is fabulous (which it is ;) ), but that my family is thriving here. That my son is sleeping in the room next door, my dog is snoring a few feet away and my wife is printing a journal article on the printer just down the hall. That's my idea of a dream house.
SOMETHING YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO
- My Dad finishing chemo and getting a clean bone marrow test
- My wife's parents moving closer
- Getting started on Yogi's first year album
- Yogi becoming a big brother
SOMETHING THAT YOU REGRET
I am a believer in the idea that every experience shapes you in essential ways and also provides you with an opportunity to learn something you need to know. Some lessons take longer than others. ;) I have made many, many questionable and downright bad decisions and I have paid the price for each one. Regret isn't really something I focus a lot of attention on, but if I had to pick one thing I know what it would be.
During the summer of 2007 I made the decision to leave my first post-graduate job in order to be closer to my now wife. As in I told my department head in June that I would be leaving in August. Not so cool. I had spent two years at that university and developed a significant mentoring relationship with one particular student. As a young female psych professor who teaches classes like The Psychology of Women, it's easy to get sucked into the drama of your students lives. This was something I was always attentive to, but there was one student who got in a little closer than any of the others. She had all sorts of challenges (family and social skills and academic) and I spent alot of time working to help her feel confident in her own skin.
My regret is that I didn't contact her personally to let her know that I would be leaving. This is someone who had suffered all kinds of losses and was not unfamiliar with being left behind. I allowed myself to be swept up in the whirlwind of moving (and trying to find a decent academic job over the summer for a Fall start) and I never said goodbye. It wasn't right and it's something I truly regret.
1 comments:
Love the first answer, hugs on the second, and nodding with understanding but no judgment on the last.
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