Year-End Perspectives

 This will be my last official post for 2024, and it ends a very crazy and different year with lots of ups and downs.  In one year, I managed to earn a Ph.D., was kicked out of my place, lost a lot of my stuff, made a momentous move to downtown Baltimore, and ended up working as a full-time teacher in a Catholic school.  There have been many adjustments, and at this point as the year comes to a close I am looking to begin rebuilding again.  So, let's review the year, and recap some significant aspects of it.

The year started out good enough - after a wonderful 2023 Christmas, we entered the New Year on a positive note.  Things went smoothly until about April then, when we started having some challenges meeting our rent on our old mobile home in Hagerstown.  After several months of struggle, the owners of the park we lived in gave us the proverbial "walking papers" to move, and that was sudden but not totally unexpected.  While the owners of our former place are evil, the office manager there was actually very gracious to us and allowed us to salvage a lot of our stuff, which was a blessing in itself.  And, to sort of make things better, the move was not even recorded as an eviction.  Subsequently, that led to about 1/2 of the month of October living in motels, and finally Barbara and I moved to new places - she moved to Rockville, where she now rents a room in a house she shares with five guys, and I moved to downtown Baltimore where I ended up in a similar situation but with only two roommates.  The move to Baltimore was providential though, as I was able to land what is essentially a dream opportunity.  Let me explain that now.

Not long after my degree was officially conferred in September, I received a phone call from the principal of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Baltimore, Dr. Joe Mitala.  He had come across my resume and was very impressed with me, so he wanted to consider me for a position.  However, that first attempt resulted in a rejection, and after I tensely told him off I got another call for a position that had recently opened up for an 11th-grade Theology teacher.  This time, it was a go, and after two stymied attempts to get to the interview - one was due to our move date, and the other was because the train was too early to catch in Harpers Ferry - on the third try I got in, and had a working interview with the school for the position.  They liked me, and a week later I had a phone interview with Mr. Reap, who is the President/Administrator of the school, and that following Sunday I was offered a $55K annual contract.  And, that is what facilitated my move to Baltimore, which happened very soon afterward.  

The move to Baltimore was fraught with challenges of its own.  For one, I had to come in with Barbara the day I was to move in and I was in the parking lot of her office building in Rockville with three cats and a rabbit piled in the car with me.  That night - it was on a Thursday - I arrived at the new place, and now I wanted to recap how I ended up there. 

I had been frantically searching for houses up to that point, as I was living almost day-to-day in the Motel 6 in Charles Town, WV.  God miraculously provided the funds I needed to survive, and in time I heard from the landlord of the place I was looking at,  and his name is Andy Dovel.  Andy turned out to be a very workable guy, and he was more than willing to let me move in.  So, thanks to the church giving me my deposits and first month's rent, I was able to secure my new place.  Located in a very rough section of town called Harwood off of Greenmount Avenue, the new home was a rowhouse that Andy was refurbishing, and I would be subletting a room in it as two other guys also shared the house.  So, I was able to move in, and at that point a whole new life to adjust to started.  Two weeks later, I would start my teaching job at Cristo Rey, and as I write this now, I have just completed my first month here.  The months of October and November seemed like an eternity, but in reality they went by quite fast.  As of today (12/4), I am one month teaching at the school, and two months since getting thrown out of Hagerstown.  Tomorrow will mark four months since I defended my dissertation, and three months since my degree was officially conferred.  This is the biggest transition I think I have had in 32 years, and there is still much to do yet.  I want to talk some about that now.

My primary objective at this point is to get a more stable house, and Barbara wants to go in with me to do that - she is not happy where she is either, and being I make a decent salary now, I can afford a better place but also understand that I need time to recover from the previous months.  So, I plan on using the next six months to get myself back together, rebuild a little, and then I can simultaneously look for a better place to live, preferably over in this area where the school is now.  It won't be easy, as properties here are astronomically high, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.  Besides, God has been with me this far, so I know he will see me the distance.  My faith is what strengthens me, and thank God for his grace that I accept by faith. 

At any rate, that is how my year has been - a time of tumultuous paradigm shifting, rebuilding, and getting things in order.  Hopefully as 2025 dawns in less than one month, it will be an even better year. 

A  blessed holiday season to all reading this, and I will see you in 2025.