So sorry my friend about the workplace. Glad about the talk about Jesus with PTSD being well accepted. I'd like a copy. Hugs. Much caring.

A friend of mine drove me home. Said, "You look good, strong," and I started crying. It's the exhaustion. The depression like over the holidays is much better for me. Better from my last fall, though the pain is greater. Exhausted from dealing with the world with no reprieve, no help, no vacation from it, no family for so many years.....Is this like what you mean? This friend is so wonderful that I just broke, no thinking. I don't get to see him often. I wish I did.

It's been a week since I sent my letter via email to my college tenure committee responding to their second tenure interview questions about the minority of angry negative comments among my generally positive evaluations. I wrote that letter after verbal consultation with my Chair, and then its first draft was literally edited on hard copy by my Vice President.

I posted about it here, too, since it was a plan for accommodation of my PTSD.

So the silence is not theirs. It's the committee's, or it is caused by an element on the committee that must be dug in. The countdown continues to the April 10th deadlines for submitting names to the board of instructors getting tenure at my college this year......

That is hard when your comfort place of work changes. We spend so much time at work it can be unsettling. Hugs to you Muji

Yeah, it was a good day of classes today. My students have no idea this may be my last few weeks with them.

What a shame. Good classes while I'm being discredited.

It's like a tree that falls in the forest and nobody hears it, huh?

But even though I don't have any witnesses to my good work, I know.

To love a place in peace time now that I feared so badly in war in Uruguay is a wonderful gift. To start to spend my old age there in 4 years is to come full circle in my healing.

So I HAVE to make it to 62 (4 more years) to do my part to retire there. I truly believe I have been offered a wonderful reward in my old age after a lifetime of PTSD if I can get there.

That's not something everyone can say. I can hardly believe it myself.

So, yes, I don't have the "no" answer about getting tenure at this job of mine yet. Just the anxiety of the wait until the decision deadline of April 10th. Thanks for being my companions in the waiting room, so to speak. I'm scared.

To comfort me, I just heard the song "Hallelujah" again, a version a friend sent me. I've loved that song since I heard its writer sing it himself, Leonard Cohen. By the way, its lyrics are about singing Hallelujah even when you yourself are broken. I want to remember the words to the second half of the song:

"There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"

"I did my best, it wasn't much...." I know. But now I'm so blessed with the prospect of old age in Uruguay.

"And even though it all went wrong..."
It might go all wrong now and I might have a rough 4 years getting from now to early retirement in 4 years.

"I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"
I do have my own actual Promised Land before me in the prospect of retiring to a peaceful Uruguay tax free if I can just find a job for the next 4 years. For that I can say Hallelujah even in this troubled time from now until April 10th.

Muji

the most gentle of all hugs, Muji

the Hallelujah song has been my favourite for a good while; I think it has been since you played it on here for us that I first heard it maybe but I am not sure.

I always felt like it was more holy that other songs considered holy, I still do - even more now.

I pray it doesn't play out quite like this for you this time, but I love how your heart is in this and how you really have only and always done more than you were expected to do. you give from your heart and..my words are becoming tears, big hugs

Muji i believe its time for things to go well for you. Good things happen to good people and you are one of the good ones. Uruguay is waiting for you in 4 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKVB_BTd52g

Uruguay song by Leon Gieco (I met him once....)

a big yes to what Loo said :O) it's time for things to go good for you, more hugs.

TGIF, it was a weird week. At lunch today in our college cafeteria I saw members of the tenure committee that put me through that hard second interview last week. Of course, they pretended not to remember last week.

It's almost like a bad dream now. So glad I have a chance to come here to touch base with reality.

Posted this on the thought for the day, but it belongs here, too:

We cant escape pain; we cant escape the essential nature of our lives. But we do have a choice. We can give in and relent, or we can fight, persevere, and create a life worth living, a noble life. Pain is a fact; our evaluation of it is a choice. ~ Jacob Held

Week 2 of waiting for the other shoe to drop regarding my tenure decision comes tomorrow. No word from the committee on the PTSD plan I sent them almost 2 weeks ago, as the deadline of April 10th approaches.

I wonder what they are thinking their not answering would do to someone who just admitted to having an anxiety disorder?

Bastards!

I spoke at one of the 2 churches where I've spoken for the last 4 years. It's the last time for me until the Fall, so I mentioned I don't know but come April 10th it might be over for me. I might be let go by my college and not have a job there come Fall if I'm denied tenure this week.

So today may have been my last time speaking to them. It was sad.