what gets you down then lifts you up

i guess its growth, i guess its the reality of mortality, i guess as i approach 30, i just realize that time keeps on slipping.

my history/english teacher from my GATE classes from my middle school passed away before Christmas. we just learned in the New Year.

Word passes from one to the next and the next and then it gets to you. You do what you will with the information and then you move on - or you stop and ponder for a long while like I have.

i found his obit online - and i was suddenly reminded that 15 years ago, when he was my teacher, in order to find something like this, i would have had to track down a paper and KNOW the exact day or go to the library and use the goddamned microfiche machine or ask the librarian to do a special search and sign this slip here and we'll have it in a couple days....

i immediately began crying - quite uncontrollably. i learned so much from him, i learned that i could do what i wanted to do, and encourage others the best way i saw fit. unorthodox teaching? this man lived, slept and breathed educating us. he went the extra mile and engaged us in ways no other teacher dared or cared to do. it was the only class i paid attention in, the only class i took seriously, the only place where i wanted to shine.

he tapped into my need to know, and he would take the subject further and further and explore every aspect of it until you were so filled with details, you could tell the story of Catherine the Great, or Nero and the fall of Rome or King Henry's female troubles as if you were sitting in the courtyard informing the townspeople. he was a masterful storyteller and even w/ the ADD addled mind i possess, he kept me rapt.

the crying was 2-fold. im reminded of a time when life was just simple and all i had to do was go to school but yet i was so concerned with everything else, boys, my body, acceptance. im sure if i spent more time focusing and less time on those things, i'd be the president of the united states, i will settle for being a social butterfly of Hollywood. the other part of the crying? is that we all have to go someday. one day someone will be reading my obit, hopefully a long and steady and interesting enough one - and they will be remembering my contributions and im hopeful i will make many more through my life...but if you can have the grace and the energy to give people so much of yourself, people you have no more responsibility for than what you can handle within those walls, just students filled with potential of varying kinds, and do that every day without having a shitty attitude - god bless you. cause that man was just like that.

i want to make a difference in this world, a positive change and give back to people. i want to help others and motivate people do well and live a good life. its what i do everyday.

plus i just want to be Oprah rich. I want to be so rich that I replace Oprah and they just call it Wynter rich.

But I'll take complete happiness and contentment before I become drunk with riches.