Literary Pixie

By Sammy Ginsberg

I’m not sure where this post will go, I just know I need to update you. I am today writing my Winter Newsletter. It’s not quite Winter yet, but it’s almost here. I am preparing. I can tell.

Mostly because I am needing to apply for jobs for Spring Semester and before I do so, I want to sit down and reflect on the last couple months, as well as think about what I’m doing November, December, January, and February.

Also things are moving very positively!

I am two weeks from finishing my substitute teaching contract! So far it has gone well. I have been a bit too nice sometimes, but alas, I am the SEL teacher. Kids feel safe. They are doing the work. They enjoy coming to class, and they say thank you to me.

I would love to learn how to maintain the academic rigor, while also being how I am. This is my personality. This is my style. This is the type of teacher I am.

This is why I thought I’d also be great as a special education teacher or working with high risk students. This is why I was a great tutor.

I would love to figure out more what my boundaries are, what my needs in the classroom, as well as colleague relationships.

I have been avoiding talking to the teachers. I am nervous what they think of me. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what the children say about me, I don’t want to hear their feedback.

I got an email about another long term position at a school near my house! I am trying to decide if I should apply.

My first thought was YES!! I can work at the school where Grease was filmed! This was the one school I wanted to deepen a relationship with and have the Los Feliz Writers partner with the school to do writing classes, and PorchFest to encourage student artists and musicians. This is the school!

If I worked there, if I had relationships there, this would be amazing!!

My second thought was – but it has been so so hard to do my other jobs, I have been working evenings and weekends – struggling to make time for the people I am close to, the people who matter to me.

I’ve been telling myself that I am in a transition phase, and that right now I am stabilizing.

I thought I needed to stabilize my relationships first!! But then as I tried to do that, I realized that I couldn’t do that until I stabilized my housing and my money and my purpose and contribution. Everything else worked around these core things!

I do think my lifestyle needs are pretty set in stone, I know my hobbies and health needs. And I fit them in as I can- they adapt to how much money I have, where I live, and around my work schedule – the things that give me meaning – that give me purpose and contribution.

I had decided, I needed to substitute teach 3 days a week, so that two days a week, I could work on my other projects.

That’s the issue with this long-term substitute contract, it would be 5 days a week!

That’s why I wanted to apply to work part-time as a lecturer at the community colleges. That would work for my schedule!

I wonder if I could ask though to only work 3 days a week? Or that I could just call in sick, or if I could share the job with another substitute teacher? I have already found a few that I think would love that!

I think I have to put my name in for both opportunities, and just put that in the cover letter!

So far, we don’t have anything lined-up!

Either way, that’s the stability. With those jobs I will have enough to live!

• CSUN Writing Project Co-Director
• Substitute teacher / Part-Time lecturer in Education, English, and/or ESL
• CATE Southland Communications Coordinator

And I have additional funds from this Long-term contract AND did I tell you, I got a job as a seasonal bookseller at Skylight! I’ll be there just for the month of December!! So that will really help me get through another month!! And the Winter Academy too!!

So I am going to be just fine! And then January to June, I will have this stability!

I am planning to apply also for the CATE Journal Editor, which will be hard but exciting! Only if I get it, but I’ll have to interview!

That’s the other application I need to write.

I was thinking in December, I’d love to write and schedule and post book reviews!!

With that financial stability, as well as job and purpose and contribution, and housing!! I am staying in Los Feliz with Wyatt!! This is my home. I am starting to feel like I could be in this house and this neighborhood for a couple years. That at 35, I’ll be ready to buy the mixed-residential apartment building – focus on affordable housing and healthcare issues.

I’ll be ready. It’s always the anxiety of starting a family, a partner, a baby. I know I want a family. A family unit. My own family unit that shares my home with me. I’m open to all kinds of structures for that family unit. I’m not there yet. I’m not able to commit.

But I will be, one day, soon!

I know I want a family unit now, but a family unit made up of friends, a tight knit friend group.

The thing about this group is that to find people who share so many of my core passions and identities and values is hard. It’s special. That’s why I fly to New York for New Years. When I am around Hannah, and Vera, and Lauren these friends since high school, since college, who all like each other, and we are a little group doing things in NYC, I feel infinite.

Although yes, they aren’t really friends with each other, I have maintained and stayed in contact with them for years separately. That is my gift.

I am excited to go again!

Ooh this reminds me, I am reading Modern Friendship by Anna Goldfarb – and it is so validating and I am so excited to do the exercises, and really focus on my relationships!!

I’ve been realizing that the situation with the guy I was seeing triggered some of my friendship issues! I have some deep wounds there, connected to my romantic relationships, connected to my siblings and family.

I have realized that I have always felt afraid to be public and label my relationships with my friends because I am afraid to exclude others – or to accidentally push friends away who thought we were close – like birthday party level close, and then we’re not!

This is because this has happened to me so many times!! And it hurt so badly. I rarely spoke up or the relationship was never really repaired.

I just distanced myself. Chose to invest in other relationships, while still maintaining the relationship – while also not trusting that person, not feeling as valued by that person. But never telling them!

I just sent one of those messages that I’ve been avoiding. Feeling proud of myself!