Sometimes, with a LARGE glass of pinot...

I feel the combination of utter relaxation, maddening frustration and complete envy.

Relaxed because, even if the bottle had been opened for a while, it stayed well, and the alcohol has loosened many of my brain cells. The fuzzy haze is creeping over me just enough to mess with my typing ability.

Envy for a host of reasons, including, but not limited to, my friends' abilities, successes, and absences; the world in which budgetary cuts don't impact the daily life from January until June--or beyond; the majority of my colleagues whose jobs aren't on the line, nor will they ever be--seniority conquers all.

Frustration at my inability to let what I can't control not bother me. Frustration with knowing that I won't have a job next year, but just got letters from two seniors that I would NEVER have expected--thanking me for my teaching style and what I did for them their junior years. Would someone who wasn't a good teacher get letters like this at all? Do my colleagues who leave their classrooms in the middle of the day to go to Subway get letters like this? Frustration that my life isn't funny or filled with awesome quirky moments. I have really bad things happening in my life right now. Things I can't control, things I try to control but can't, and it is wearing me out.

Choosing wine and Powell's over the gym doesn't help things, nor does forgetting to take my Vitamin D, but still. I keep getting these "praise" emails about our amazing standardized test score increase--and I know that my students play a small portion into that--but it doesn't' matter. To anyone. Nothing I do matters. What a horrendously negative post this is. I apologize to my reader.

What does someone do when there is so much uncertainty?