Wiser This Time Around

I'm typing this in my classroom.  There's a little less than half an hour until I officially begin my new teaching job.  It's strange to be back... because I taught here in 2005.  And oh yeah, it's also my alma mater.  First student, then teacher, then teacher again.


I have no idea why I'm in a science classroom.

Driving here, I was thinking about the person I was when I was last here.  I was in my mid-twenties, fresh out of graduate school.  I moved back home from Europe and was living with my parents.  I taught at another school, too.  I also tutored and worked as a hostess at two restaurants for extra cash.  Where did all that money go?!

Around that time, I fell in love with my now-husband, Bruce.  We used to go out with a big group of friends almost every night.  He was living with his parents.  After some months we quit all our jobs and started fresh in Chicago.

Here I am again.  I joked to Bruce earlier, it's like 2005 all over again except now we both live with his parents.  The other day I watched the movie The Vow, the one where Channing Tatum plays a husband who has to get his amnesiac wife, Rachel McAdams, to fall in love with him anew.  I'm a sucker for love stories and anything set in Chicago.  It was pretty much the first movie I've seen in its entirety since the baby was born.  Anyways, at one point Rachel McAdams' character says she gets a do-over on life.  That's what this feels like.

This time, I'm going to save my money and pay off the debts I incurred during those irresponsible party years.  2012 is the new 2005.