Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
I am in a time of “I don’t know.”
I don’t know how to help a student who is struggling with anger. I don’t know how to help his teacher see that he isn’t acting out to hurt her personally, although he is starting to learn how to trigger her, and his connection to her is eroding because his anger triggers her anger. I don’t know how to get my daughter to sleep through the night, or how to share the burden of being with her when she’s awake in a way that feels equitable to my husband. I don’t know how to give a little more without resentment, and I don’t know how to make sure I take just enough for myself without feeling selfish. I don’t know exactly how or what I’ll be teaching next year. I have to make my own roadmap, and I’m afraid I’ll get myself lost with big ideas and not enough detail. I am alternately terrified and delighted by my new position. I don’t know who will be taking care of my children next year. I can already feel August zooming toward us like a bullet. I want to cling to these sweet days of part time work and Fridays off, when I still feel like I have time to breathe and be a human outside of my roles as teacher and mother. Springtime always seems to be full of these questions of I don’t know. It makes me edgy and upset. I recently read the book “The Seventh Most Important Thing” by Shelly Pearsall because some of my fifth graders read it. It is historical fiction based on James Hampton, a folk artist who created an amazing altar out of trash, which is sometimes on display at the Smithsonian. Above his altar is the sign “Fear Not.” My students created a poster after they read the book and at the top they wrote the words “Fear Not.” It’s a good message for them as they head into the unknown of middle school. It’s a good message for me, too. So often I find if I push too hard I come up with the wrong answer, or I do the wrong thing. I will try to move through my life right now with openness, taking time as needed to get calm and listen. Wait. Not everything will work out the way I want or plan; some things will be better than I expected, some things will solve themselves, some things will need a little more work. If I let go of fear I remember how many times it has happened in my life that the thing I dreaded, feared, worried over relentlessly, turned out better than I could have ever imagined. And even if it didn’t, I survived; there was some seed or kernel of goodness I learned from.
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