with pieces of my soul drawn inside

Sometimes, I just need to write. It's something I used to do
every
single
day.
That was in high school. I had eight hours of boredom each day, and I was free to write and draw through every lecture. I filled countless notebooks. I drew tiny, cartoonish artwork in my black sketchbook until it was full.

That poor sketchbook. It spent three years being carted around with me, and you can tell. That book went from my bedroom floor to backpack to locker to being rained on or having cheap wine spilled on it for nearly four full years. My entire high school education is locked somewhere in all those pages. High school, and every other event in my life.

But when I graduated, my sketchbook wasn't a convenient medium anymore. I was rarely at a desk or table, and when I was I needed to be paying attention. And then I moved on to other forms of art. For a while I strung beads and used them in revamping old garage-sale lamps. I learned to crochet and to embroider. I altered books and pieced paper, and glued wierd objects to other odd items.

But I quit sketching, and I quit writing. And not this kind of writing. I do these posts often, in various places. But I used to write. Poetry and gorgeous short stories and simple rambling prose that was ripe with words that you could nearly taste when spoken. Sometimes I can still piece together a phrase that melts souls, but I've lost much of what I used to define my teenage self.

And I was a preschool teacher. The things they don't tell you when you sign on for that kind of a job:
-You'll probably gain eight pounds a year. Sure, you'll work half of it off over the summer, but that still leaves you four pounds a year gained. ugh.
-When you work with the tiny folk, you generally have to shorten your vocabulary. Not always, with all kids, but you do tend to lose the ability to have an intellectual thought when you spend so much of your life saying things like "Get your foot out of her mouth!" and, "Fish do not eat beans."

That chapter of my life has come to a halt. I left the stress of preschool to go back to college. I miss the kids, but I'm glad to be at a place in my life that I can put myself first. I've never done that before, not in a real sense. I'm 21, and I've always had a job. For my entire adult life, I've been working full-time and trying to go to school. I know that this is how things are supposed to happen. That's fine, but it was a lot for me to take on. Preschool, and the one I worked at in particular, is a stressful place for the people who work there. It's not a job you can leave at work, which is exhausting. You carry those children and their problems with you everywhere. Always thinking about what might help this one or wondering what that one's life is like at home.

So tonight, I dug out my sketchbook. Not my old, battered friend, but a less familiar one. The one my sweetie bought me in the early days of our relationship, the one that has gathered dust and barely been used at all. I'm not saying I can devote eight mind-crushingly bored hours with it or anything, but that I am challenging myself. I need those handwritten words and all the strange, cartoony creatures. I need that expression. One book, with pieces of my soul drawn inside.