Mind, Body and Soul Manifestations

I am slowly starting to realize that maybe I am a Type A personality. I always thought of myself as pretty relaxed and laid back, but through my experience as a real estate agent, teacher, waitress, and multiple other jobs, I am noticing more and more that I want to be in control of everything. This causes me stress and it makes me freak out prematurely about little things. I actually think this is one thing that makes me a successful teacher: I am in control of my curriculum, my materials (within the limits of my budget at least), and the way I run my classroom. It is a lot harder for me to give up this control in my second job. I have taught several large classes lately (30+ adults) and have not been in charge of tracing the canvases, gathering materials...in other words, I didn't have my hands in every step of the process. I realize that this stresses me out. It is no one else's fault but my own. I work with fabulous people who are on top of things and motivated and I have...

I have had this piece of writing by Maya Angelou on my mind this week, so I wanted to share it with you. I read it in AP English my senior year of high school and it has stuck with me. "Now that I am firmly settled into my fifth decade; and pressing with resolute determination toward my sixth, I find nothing so pleases me as much as outsize gaudy earrings, off-the-shoulder blouses, and a few red hibiscus blooms pinned into my hair. Do I look incongruous? Possibly to the young. Do I feel that way? Decidedly not. I have reached the lovely age where sensuality satisfies me as much as sexuality and sometimes more so. As a sensualist, I would have my ears filled with the world's music, the free laughter of old folks sitting in the last sunlight, and the whirr of busy bees in the early morning. I want to hear the sharp sound of tap dancing and the murmur of a spiritual half remembered, the whisper of a lover entreating a beloved. All sounds of life and living, death and dying, w...