Writer's Workshop-Motives Uncovered

Gotta love Mama Katt and her Writer's Workshop Thursday. If you like to write, check her out!!

The Prompts:

1.) Why did you do it?

2.) What is a common misconception about you?

3.) Describe a moment when you felt afraid.

4.) In what ways are you turning into your mother?

5.) Are you always right?

Why did I do it?

Hmm, such a vague question that brings out all the guilty thoughts and moments in my sordid past. My nocturnal missions, my constant reconnaissance on unwary targets, my CLASSIFIED: NATIONAL SECURITY. There were so many moments that I could barley recount them in my tiny pea brain. So, why did I do it?

Why did I decide to teach?

Seems like such a thankless job. Add the whole coaching a fringe sport in a football crazy state, you would think that I'm a masochist. Maybe I am, but the path that took me down the educational path wasn't one that I would've chose.

I had graduated college in the Spring of 1992. In four years, I had achieved a degree in Criminal Justice and I was ready to take on the world....or not. I was in a pickle. I went to college to be a lawyer. Around the fall of my senior year I came to a simple but crucial conclusion. I did NOT want to be a lawyer. However, I had no fall back plan. So, for the better part of a year, I was in a holding pattern. I was also in my first long term relationship. Maybe it was the fact I could hang with her more, or maybe I actually listened to my Dad who always said, "Find a job that is always in need. Folks will always need teachers, doctors, or undertakers."

So, I packed up myself and went back to college to get my teacher's certificate (partially since me with a scalpel would actually cause more work for undertakers). I picked social studies because, well, I like history. Girlfriend broke up with me within a month, but everything else went pretty much to schedule. I found that unlike everything else, teaching was easy for me. Not the actual classes or practice, but me finding work. I had always heard that when God has a plan for your life, he takes away all road blocks.

Oh yeah, the confirmed bachelor in me also found love at the ripe old age of 32. The love of my life, Jill, may never have found me if God had put it on my heart to teach the young. Regardless of my motives, he used my path to give me the greatest gift anyone could ever have...a soul mate...a family...A real life.

That's why I did it.