hard choices and beginnings

There has been so much joy in my personal life.

There has been so much change in my career life.

I believe there are different types of scared.  I was good scared when I started teaching in East New York, eleven years ago.  I was good scared right before I walked down the aisle to marry Ryan. It's a good fear that drives us to become better people.  That whatever we are about to do takes courage, sometimes a lot of it, and we dig down and find that courage and walk on.  It is a good scared that sometimes drives us to give ourselves over to something bigger than ourselves.  A  good fear that continues to remind us that life is scary but also incredibly rewarding when you take a risk.
A jump.
Accepting that there's no real guarantees and trusting ourselves enough to know that we are making the best decisions we know how to make; then clinging tightly to them when things gets a little rocky.

I made a decision to not teach this year. I took a jump. 

I am passionate about education. Mainly about equality in education and that no matter the socioeconomic status you are born into, you are given a quality education. That you are shown respect and love and honored. All human deserves that.

I will always work hard and do what I can for that to happen in my world.

At the same time, I am accepting that my life has seasons. It just does. All my heart wants to do is pour myself into those lacking honor and care. But there are seasons of recovery and I am learning to accept that fact. 

So, while I have been basking in the beauty of my new life this summer as a wife and having a husband, an incredible opportunity came along, kind of a dream job. I was asked to be on faculty at a small private college. I accepted it. I am teaching graduate classes on writing curriculum for English language learners and supporting and supervising student teachers.  I will have a chance to pour into teachers and assist them in creating lessons and work for their students. I have always loved college campuses and when I arrived last Wednesday for a faculty meeting, I was at peace. It is where I am suppose to be this year, my head knows it, and I am working on convincing my heart.

It's taken a while for me to sit down and really write and articulate my feelings about loving and leaving teaching for this year. Education is my passion.  I am bias, but I think it is one of the most rewarding jobs on this planet. It's little lives. I had the privilege of getting to know so many students over the years and have been changed and inspired by many of them. Life is long and it's possible that I'll find myself in the classroom with teenagers again, I have a feeling I will.

Burn out is kind of a state of being, when you're a teacher in a high needs school. It is.  Balance has never been my specialty. I dive in deep and give whatever I am doing 110%. I don't know how to do a half ass job, if I know I can't do it really well, I just won't do it at all. (It's not a great quality of mine, I'm trying to learn balance, but it's the personality I was born with and that's what I have to work with).  I know deep in my heart that taking a step back from working in crisis is exactly what I am suppose to be doing this year. I know it is great timing as I will have the emotional energy needed to focus on my new marriage. 

It makes sense and seems so perfect on paper, but it was still one of the HARDEST decisions I have ever had to make.  It was super scary and emotional.  I cried a lot. I still cry a little thinking about it. I will miss seeing my students everyday. As insane as it can get, it has been my life for eleven years.  It has shaped me into who I am today. It has been a privilege to have had the time and energy needed to work in my city's public schools.

I am a bag of mixed emotions. It's a bit of a roller coaster ride with me as school has started again and for the first time in my entire life, I am not back to school.

Nature

I had two very quiet, nature-ie, and sill experiences in July.
July we went upstate to visit my brother. For Ryan and Darin to meet. They are two of the most kind and gentle men I know (probably due to them both having tons of sisters). I loved hanging out, us three! It was super special.

Ryan and I stayed in an Airbnb for the weekend upstate NY to visit with Darin. Ryan said it was the most rustic thing he'd ever done. It was a cabin with a full bathroom and full kitchen. It really wouldn't be categorized as rustic. Seeing as we both have lived in cities for our entire adult lives, "rustic" or even rustic is not something we do often.
On Saturday we went canoeing...... hello nature! We canoed for like five hours I think. We were the only ones canoeing in a massive reservoir. Like HUGE! Like so big that when it started thundering (four hours in) I panicked and got down on my knees and started rowing like turbo speed. (My shoulders and arms have healed in time). It took us a good 45 minutes to canoe to get to a side and be closer to land. (So as to not get struck by lightening). For those forty-five minutes I probably thought about death about ten different times. The other thing about hearing thunder when your husband is half deaf (literally, I'm not being a jerk, he lost his hearing in his left ear when he was a teenager), is that it takes about 5-6 minutes to convince him that yes, it's thundering, before he actually starts focusing and rowing hard!
So, we made it, not only that but we got the top of the reservoir and had a little lunch picnic and relaxed and enjoyed the quiet and stillness. (well we relaxed until Ryan was convinced that the poop near our little island lunch spot was bear poop and we should, "just be aware of any bear that might be around.")
The thing about Ryan is he says really scary and intense things in a very calming voice and it can be confusing.

Nature adventure #2:

My solo drive from Phoenix to San Diego. I've never spent any time in the desert. I had a work meeting in Phoenix and that was my first time in the south west area of American. (side note: I'm desperate to see the Grand Canyon and I feel like I should have tried harder to fit the Grand Canyon into our Arizona/California trip, but I didn't).  So I rented a little car (well I rented a very small car without cruise control and since I was driving far I returned it for a car WITH cruise control).
I set off. My phone was on 20% battery and I had some gas. Within the first thirty minutes I was in the middle of nothing! Like tumble weeds and cactus.  Just like the movies.
It was 104 degrees out and I had two prayers: 1. Please don't let me run out of gas 2. Please don't let my AC break. Thanks.

There were mountains and signs that read "turn off AC or car may overheat" and then a few miles up the road huge buckets of water for overheated cars.
I had to turn my phone off so it didn't die (cause if it died, I seriously wondered if I would, out there in the desert).
So, I kept driving. Driving in the silence cause the only radio stations were in Spanish and trying to learn that language in college didn't go well and I had no idea what they were singing about.
I had to stop at two border control stations. I wasn't hiding anything so they let me through. I survived. I drove on.

Nature days!

what goes around, comes around

I was riding the subway from my neighborhood in Brooklyn up to Columbia Circle, kind of a longish trip, but I had a good book so it was fine.
Fine until.....here comes a lady, appears homeless, and she starts SCREAMING, "I'm pregnant and hungry" and is asking for money. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about giving money to people on the streets, but I want to help. So I dug out my granola bar and offered it to her, I just held it out as she walked by my seat. She shook her head, no.  Kind of quietly, kind of like, "I'm not THAT hungry to eat your little natures bar."  So then there's that moment, I'm holding it out, she said she's hungry so I say, "are you hungry, you can have this." She took it and I doubt she ate it.

But karma comes around. After my meeting in Columbus circle, I was hungry and kinda bummed I gave my bar to someone who didn't want it. As I was walking down the subway stairs a kettle chip rep was handing out free bags of chips. Just like that, I had food given to me! NICE!

The homeless like Ryan way more than they like me. If someone asks Ryan for food, he'll grab a hamburger for them from McDonalds.  They eat that. Me, I offer them a grain bar and whatever organic snack I have in my bag, or it just simply isn't taken. I can't image life on the streets and Ryan says McDonalds tastes really good so why not. I guess if life is that tough day in and day out a little McDonalds is a life bonus.

I am currently watching a series on Netflix that I think is HILARIOUS! It's double funny because Ryan thinks it's SO funny too and he laughs SO hard every time we watch it. This week has been insane for both of us at work. We both have been getting home around 9:00 and watching an apisode while stuffing food into our mouths cause we're always starving by then! Watching an episode, laughing, and falling asleep to get up and do it all again. Those 22 minutes while I am laughing and eating are awesome! Those 22 minutes I get to see Ryan, are super awesome.
So, this episode we watched was about two of the characters treating themselves to things. They go on a shopping and spa day and "treat yourself." It's awesome! It's double awesome because of the facial expressions when they say "Tree-Eat" yourself. 

So all that to say, maybe next time someone asks me for food I'll get something they actually like, I'll treat them. Maybe there are requests that don't make sense and what someone else would consider a treat I can't understand. What is important is that we are honestly with what we want and know what things are special to us.

My treats are time with people I love, the beach, going for runs, reading a good book, baking (but not again until Sept-Oct cause it's WAY too hot for that now), traveling, and eating really good food. I value those things so much and when those treats come around, it's a really good day. I am going to get just about all those treats into one when we leave for our honeymoon in just two weeks!  HELLO Curacao... I'll see you soon!

Passages

My 10th graders are all writing what we call, passages, a letter stating what makes them ready to be 11th graders. Upperclassman. They have to provide evidence of what they have done in their 9th and 10th grades to prove to a panel that they are ready to be upperclassman.

I also have just done my own kind of passage.  I've moved from my single life, just jes, to married life: Jessica Ann Kruse Cerutti. I made a choice in front of a large group of familiar faces, to start a new family.  To love, honor, respect, show kindness, and enjoy someone for the rest of my life.
It was a total rush!!
I've never been so sure of anything.
It was a conscience decision when I sad yes at the beach in North Carolina last August, when he proposed. I knew he was meant to be my life partner.
But as sure as I was, I still felt the weight, the commitment, the promise, the holy vow I was about to make and it took everything inside me to keep from fainting before the ceremony! (I am a fainter, when life gets a little much or too emotional, I have a little trick..... I just pass out. I take my own little time out from life. Not on purpose, of course.  My body just does it. It always has. Oh the childhood stories I could tell......)
Anyway - as intense as the deeply serious moments were, right before the ceremony, it was still a joy. In my heart I KNEW, I just knew, I was about to make the best promise of my life.
I've made tons of decisions, or things have happened and decisions have been made that change me forever. But a wedding is so unique because all my favorite people make plans and sacrifice time, energy and resources to come watch and support me making a decision. A lifelong promise.  It is such a special time.
My Dad was so kind, and he tried to crack a few classic Dad jokes before we walked down the aisle, to calm me. He has always been a rock in my life. I don't know HOW I would have made it down the aisle without him. He held me up! (literally)
The minute I saw Ryan's face at the alter I calmed. His calming presence is actually one of the millions of reasons I married him.
This picture captures the moment I saw Ryan, I can tell, I tilted my head and knew, we were in this together. We connected at that moment!

Our wedding was above and beyond how I imaged it would go.
As my mind was trying to catch up with my heart, as Ryan and I made promises and became our own family on that day, I was at peace. The beginning of my new home. 
In the couple of pictures we have seen so far of our wedding I am out-of-control-happy. I am literally overjoyed and that face is exactly what I always hoped I would feel at my wedding.

I really like being married. It's pretty awesome to just have one person who means so much to me. Who shares life with me. I am part of an US now, and I am all about it!
Partnership makes me feel alive.
What drives our lives? What brings life. For me, it's always been caring for others and building relationships. The thing that is awesome about putting energy into this new relationship with Ryan is that it is around to stay. It is a constant. It gives life.

as for my act three.....

And.... for my act three..... in just four little weeks.
Act two was pretty rad. I loved my single and dating years, well lets say, we had a love/hate relationship with each other. I explored what it meant to be Jes Kruse. I worked my heart out (physically, mentally, emotionally).  I gave my students and my job 100% of myself.  I played really hard too, during act two, I had experiences that were A-MAZ-ING.
Now comes act three (fyi - act one was my childhood). Act three will have tons of scenes that will happen with Ryan by my side. That's super!!!!!  What an adventure we will have together!
Act three starts with a big party, with people flying from all over the place to celebrate with us.  I love that our big party is happening in the Spring, which signifies new beginnings. 
Ryan and I are so similar and so different and I am really loving getting to know my life partner.  We are both middle children and have a lot of similar personality traits because of that. We love our families to the max. We miss them.
NYC is our home but no one else in our families calls NYC their home, and so Easter was spent in Brooklyn. Just us. Simple. We went to church and then biked down by the East River. Sat between the Brooklyn bridge and Manhattan bridge and talked. I sat and wondered when the Verizon building would be taken down (for all you New Yorkers you know what I mean, it's just such an eye sore). Then we walked to grab hot tea cause April got confused and forgot to give us some warmth.  Since it's Easter we went into my favorite little candy shop in Dumbo and I scooped out some of our favorite candies into a bag.  Biked up to our favorite Middle Eastern spots and ate lunch.
Act three is pretty simple. Simple in the way that it's small, I don't have a million little things going on, I just have one big thing going on. I like it that way. Act two was really exhausting!
When I started act two, when I moved to NYC or maybe it started when I started college, well I just had NO idea all the scenes that would take place.  And actually, I'm glad I didn't. Joys, friendships, and memories that I could have never guessed would be as beautiful as they were. Surprises that were beyond things I could have even imaged. Of course heartache I didn't know I could survive and lows that I never would have guessed I could overcome, but I did.
It's really a sense of excitement, the start of act three. I know this next stage will be full of joys, excitements, pains, adventures, and dreams, but the real bonus is that I get to do them all with a guy that I find to be a dream.
So today is Easter, the start of something beautiful. When my faith/religion was changed forever. That same guy, Jesus, who we are remembering today, is know to: "make beautiful things, in his time".
When I look at my life now, I realize, yep, He sure does. The very best things that have happened to me have not been in my timing, but they have always been right on, in a good way. I'm thankful today for timing that makes sense and beauty that comes when we have either given up or aren't really looking so hard anymore.
Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Happy new beginnings. 

inner worlds

This is trending right now: If you want to see change in the outside world, the first step is to withdraw into your inner world.

I'm not an introvert. I get energy from hanging out with people. I love talking to my close friends and my family. I often choose time with others over time on my own. It isn't much of an effort to build relationships and keep up with my friends, I really like it. People are my jam.

Withdrawing to my inner world takes a LOT of concentration and intentional planning on my part. It takes saying, "no", it takes being strong and to combat our culture and try and not care about what people think. Inner worlds are scary. Taking quiet moments to learn about myself, that has been the work of the winter of 2015. (Well, probably the work of my life)

If I can't take really good care of myself how will I ever take care of those around me for a sustainable amount of time.

I work in an extremely high needs school, it is year eleven so I talk a lot less about it's emotional impact on my life than I use to. Back when the shocks of my students' lives would rock my world to the core. I wouldn't say I am now use to the poverty, violence, loneliness, and hunger that happens, I would just say that I have managed to balance what I can do and then accepting that there are things I can't do. (and sometimes hating that all I can do is cry and pray for them).
 
I was in DC this past weekend for work. Martin Luther King's son spoke. It was inspiring and surreal.  He said, "be ashamed to die until you've won a victory for humanity" MLK III.  I believe those victories will look different for each one of us. Maybe mine might now is caring for myself, so I am a stronger person in order to better care for humanity, maybe that's my victory right now, to learn how to care for this human, myself.   MLK III was elegant throughout his talk and then he left us all with his raw advise on how to manage difficult children, "just love the hell out of them." I think that is exactly right.  That's how we make small victories, we love the hell out of those around us. That's my hope.

Anne Lamotte says, "the main difference between me and God is that he never thinks he's me."  Today I am thankful for my faith, thankful that I believe in someone bigger and higher than me, thankful that it's not all on my shoulders.

For me, these days, there is a struggle between trying to "be God" or stopping to turn inward and learning about authenticity and real and beautiful love from an inward and quiet place. A kinda love that makes this world a place where we honestly say to one another, "I need you, you need me."  We are all on this planet together, and somehow we can make sense of it all, together, with some inward moments. 
Let's just love the hell out of each other.

on being engaged

I’m engaged. Ryan and I are engaged and I have started this blog post about five times.  (now we are just about half way through our engagement stage, so I'll finish it up).

One of the best things that has ever happened to me occurred in North Carolina this past August. Ryan, my boyfriend at the time, in his words “upgraded me” to his fiancée. He proposed in the most perfect way and I said yes!

And now…. We are on our way to alter!!! (just as soon as we finish making some flower, photography, and ceremony decisions, and then prepare our little hearts for a life time of love and commitment)

Ok, we’re on it!

 Turns out no matter how amazing and wonderful the change is; it is still a change. It is the best upgrade that anyone has ever asked me to be a part of and I am blessed beyond words that I get to spend my life with someone that I think is the greatest person I’ve ever met. BONUS!! And so, I am preparing myself for all the changes that comes with my, “yes”.  Cause HELLO change, there is a lot of you

There are some really powerful things I have discovered to assist me in my road towards marriage.  This engagement stage comes with more decisions and feelings and choices than I ever realized brides and grooms encountered.  Often I turn to books to ground me when I enter uncharted territory, cause I figure someone else has most likely gone through something a little similar.  So I currently am reading, The conscience bride, and it is AWESOME!!! I have always LOVED to connect with other people that are going or have gone through something similar to me. (Although I am also trying to grasp that no one has ever lived my life and I need to stop trying to get people to understand my choices and every aspect of my life….. OH, which brings me to a really great quote from a different book I am also reading, “the vast majority of us go to our graves without knowing who we are. We unconsciously live someone else’s expectations for us. This does violence to ourselves, our relationship with God, and ultimately to others". Anyway, that book is GOOD. Thanks Peter Scazzero, you’re a solid author) And ok, back to the conscience bride book,  it’s also solid and kinda like a game changer!  I am working hard to be me and be the best Jes I can be for myself and then also for this man that I am just about to marry. The guy I am about to commit to live life with for the rest of our lives. That’s pretty huge. It’s a big deal!

So as I am learning to live MY life and live the very best one I can possibly live. I am really into the little moments in life. The raw, low key, easy times. Kinda like the outtakes of life. Just a little like this picture……here we are waiting for the perfect sunlight and for the cars to STOP driving in front of our “backdrop” during our engagement photo shoot.  We are really happy, as seen in all our published engagement pictures, but in this outtake image, it’s raw, we are just waiting, it’s real life.

              And then we kept posing for our perfect NYC skyline picture but there were boats and people and airplanes.  The picture we printed on canvas and LOVE came together long after all the others were taken.

After this boat, came the picture we were waiting for!

“Breathing through uncomfortable situations is what brings growth.” This is what I have been told in one of my books.

The most authentic and beautiful life I can possibly live comes from accepting situations I can’t control and ones I didn’t expect.  Cause sometimes an unexpected things turns into the love of my life. (other times it’s crying about the unexpected things on our wedding “to do” list). But that’s life. 

For me, I don't want to put all my energy into waiting for the magical moments. There will be boats in the way, the sun won't shine the way our photographer needs, and sometimes high heels hurt after a while.

And there ARE magical moments and I am super thankful for those too!!

Life is an adventure and most of the best things in my life have come without me pushing and forcing, so maybe I can take that little thought and keep myself calm for the next four months as we finish up wedding plans for our day in May 2015!