The Importance of Being Lauren

The schools year is quickly approaching (although, not fast enough for me). It has been a challenging two years of teaching, going to school, experiencing a faith transition, and living through a global pandemic.  I've had a terrible experience this year with a guardian who hates me. She belittles me every chance she gets. She uses me as a scapegoat to blame for every issue her students has in school. She is condescending and patronizing. I always leave conversations with her feeling anxious and overwhelmed with emotion. The last two weeks have been especially bad, because her student has been getting into trouble. I have been feeling helpless and emotionally exhausted. I always feel attacked when I talk to her, and it's ridiculous.  I brought this lady up in therapy on Tuesday, and I've decided to write what I want to tell her. Here we go: I really care about your student. We had built a great relationship between September and November, before schools shut down again. I h

TRIGGER WARNING: Potential Kidnapping During quarantine I had the bright idea that I was going to sell everything I owned. It was a desperate time for me as I was paying $2500 a month in rent after my roommates moved out because of COVID. I had great experiences selling furniture and other big ticket items, and met really lovely people.  One day as I was cleaning out my room I found my old iPhone 6 and decided to try to sell it. I received multiple offers within the first couple minutes of posting it. I set up a meeting time with one of the first people interested and made sure to chose a place far enough from home so they couldn't know where I live.  I chose a place between a very populated grocery store and a post office. It was about 10 blocks and 2 avenues over from my apartment and I thought I was super smart to choose such a busy place to meet the person.  As I was walking over to the meeting spot the guy started sending weird messages. It started with "wow you're re