Holding On Before Letting Go

Last night I arrived home just in time to say goodbye to my boys as my husband whisked them off to karate class.  I was a little disappointed that the one night I come home semi-on-time, they have some place else to be.  There was a part of me, though, that was thankful for a little quiet, a little time alone without anyone expecting anything of me.

I grabbed my laptop and sank gratefully onto the couch.  After a few minutes of perusing social media, I turned to my email.  My eye landed on one email with the subject line "Important Information and Dates for 8th Graders" which had been sent by my son's middle school.  Upon opening it, I discovered that the important information and dates didn't really have anything to do with middle school.  It was all about high school.

I'm fairly certain my heart stopped for a brief moment.

High school.  Why, in my few moments of peace and quiet, did they have to remind me that my baby would be starting high school in the fall?  I wasn't ready to face that reality.

My mind wandered back to that day that couldn't possibly have been more than a couple of years ago when the nurse walked my husband and me out of the hospital to our car and helped us strap our newborn son into his car seat.  I remember vividly the frantic voice screaming in my head, "Are you crazy?  You can't leave him alone with us!  He's just a baby and we don't know how to take care of babies! We are completely clueless!"

I was a nervous wreck the whole way home, watching the cars around us suspiciously.  When I was in college and would have to make the drive between Santa Clara and Santa Barbara, my father would always warn me to watch out for the other idiots. I was convinced that I was now surrounded by them and one was sure to cause harm to my baby.

That, of course, was only the beginning of my fears.  The first days were filled with me running to my mother and asking her if the noise Jared was making was normal.  It took him a while to catch on to the whole breast-feeding thing, so I was worried about that. As he got older there were new worries.  I hated taking him to the park because I was certain he would fall off the play structure and get hurt.  I worried (and cried!) the first day I dropped him off at day care when I returned to work. Every day there was something that caused me at least one anxious moment.

I thought it would get easier as he got older, but I realize now that even bigger fears lie before me.  In a couple of years he will start driving.  There will be dating and friendships and heartbreak and tough classes and temptations I don't even want to think about.  When he was a baby, the mistakes were all mine to make.  Now they are his. What little control I had before has dwindled into next to nothing. It's pretty much all up to him now. I am all too aware that some mistakes are unforgiving and offer no second chances. Therein lies my greatest fear.

When the boys returned from karate last night, Jared came and sat beside me on the couch. Together we viewed online some of the course descriptions for electives.  I asked him if he was excited, and he said, "No." I don't really think that's true.  He certainly was eager to share with me the packet they were given to plan their four years of high school to prepare them for their life beyond. He also seemed very interested in a couple of the classes we looked at and talked about his plans to take AP classes.

Perhaps, like me, he knows the next four years will come and go faster than a tear travels down a cheek.  Perhaps, like me, he is a little afraid of what happens next.

But I've been where he is, so I have a pretty good idea what happens next. As he continues to grow into the young man he is becoming, he will grow farther away from the baby that was mine.  The one I was so scared to take home, I now am so scared to have leave.  But leave he will.  That day is coming, and all too quickly, when once and for all, he will let go of my hand and make his way through this world without me by his side.

I hope he understands if I hold onto him just a little more tightly while I still can.

The "Have Done" List

My observation yesterday by four district administrators proved to be a bit eye-opening.  For me.

I was determined not to do anything out of the ordinary when they came in for their ten-minute observation.  I've been teaching for 20 years, I told myself. I don't do dog and pony shows.  What you see is what you get.  If they didn't like what they saw, well, that was too bad.

I will confess that I did rearrange my schedule a little to accommodate their arrival in my class 30 minutes after school started.  I may not do dog and pony shows, but who really wants to watch 24 third-graders correct their math homework?  So, we did that first to get it out of the way and so we would be involved in the daily read aloud when our visitors arrived. After that, since it was "Trailer Tuesday," I planned to show the book trailer for Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate, who also wrote The One and Only Ivan, the book I was currently reading aloud.  My class was loving Ivan and one of my students had actually recommended Crenshaw to me, so it all fit together nicely. I had purchased a copy of the book, and I knew my students would be eager to get their hands on it. Plus, the time I spend reading aloud to my class in the morning is my favorite time of the day, and I felt that I would be most comfortable having strangers in my room watching me do something I feel passionate about.

At the end of my visitors' observation, they all tossed a note on my desk and filed out of my room. A quick glance at the notes assured me that no one had written "That really sucked. What were you thinking?"  When I finally had a chance to review the notes more carefully, I discovered that they were all complimentary and each one noted the excitement my students displayed for both the book I was reading and for the one introduced with the book trailer.  "What a great idea!" one of them wrote.

That's when it hit me. 

I have spent quite a bit of time this year beating myself up over all the things I haven't done.  So many things I wanted to try but never got to.  So many things I tried but didn't quite work out the way I had envisioned. I was so busy looking at all the things I hadn't done, I forgot about all the things I had done. Because I had started Trailer Tuesday years ago, I didn't give it much thought anymore. It was just part of my routine.

Routine.  Merriam-Webster defines routine as "a regular way of doing things in a particular order; a boring state or situation in which things are always done in the same way."  I had been doing Trailer Tuesday for so long that I had stopped seeing it as something exciting, even when I could plainly see the excitement on my students' faces.  It was simply something I did, and over time I had developed the idea that everyone else did it, too. In short, it was nothing special.

Several years ago I attended a GATE training by John DeLandtsheer.  I remember he suggested highlighting completed tasks on a to-do list instead of crossing them off.  At the time that made no sense to me.  I loved crossing things off.  It gave me such a sense of accomplishment.  Now, however, I finally get it.  Highlight your accomplishments.  Don't just cross them off and forget them. Put the focus not on the things you haven't gotten to yet but on the ones you have.  Celebrate them.

I have a long to-do list, albeit a mental one, that haunts me.  I am sure many of you do, too. What if instead of a to-do list we made a "have done" list? What if we highlighted all the things we have accomplished, however small or routine they may seem to us?  How might our outlook change?  And what if we had our students do the same?  

Focusing on success rather than failure.  Not a new idea, certainly.  But one I all too often forget. Maybe it's time to change that.

A Call to Shine

There was no need for my alarm clock this morning.  I awoke at 3:30 a.m., eyes wide open and brain already whirling around at full speed. I knew instantly that I was not going to go back to sleep.

Which is rather unfortunate as today is my day to "shine."

You would not be wrong to suspect there was a bit of sarcasm in that last statement. A few weeks ago, the staff at my school was informed that district personnel would be visiting our school today. They were going to form teams that would go into classrooms for ten-minute observations.  It was our chance to shine as a school.

I don't shine.

I have never been the type of person to call attention to myself.  I don't crave the spotlight.  So, when the call for volunteers went out, I did not answer. Besides my natural aversion to public performances, I had more than enough stress in my life at the moment.  My husband had had knee surgery, my two boys were both sick, and my brother and sisters and I had just moved our mother into an assisted living facility near me.  This was on top of the normal stresses of being a wife and mother with a full-time job and a class that sucks the life out of me on a daily basis.  No, the added stress of having strangers come in and watch and judge me was just a bit more than I could handle. Honestly, I was stretched as thin as I could go and hanging on by that proverbial thread.  I was sure one more thing would make me snap, and I didn't really want to be held responsible for the ensuing disaster.

So, you might wonder, how did this end up being my day to shine?

Last Friday at 4:30 p.m. an email was sent out to staff with the final schedule for the district's visit. And surprise, surprise, my name was on it.  What?  Had I suffered a seizure that was misconstrued as an eagerly raised hand?  Had I sent an email in my sleep demanding that my principal pick me? 

Nope. Nothing of the sort had occurred.  It had just been decided that I would participate whether I wanted to or not.  Evidently, I didn't even merit advance warning.  

Surprised? Yes.  Shocked? No.  I couldn't even muster up the energy to be mad about the situation.  I understood that my boss was in a difficult position.  He had a couple dozen district personnel coming to see his teachers put on a show and his cast was decidedly lacking.  He had no other choice but to draft additional performers.  

My objection was the way in which it was handled.  When did I become such a nonentity that one didn't even need to have a conversation with me when decisions about my life were made? Where had professional courtesy disappeared to?  Was I really thought so little of?

And it put me in an awkward position.  In addition to avoiding the spotlight, I also avoid conflict whenever possible.  But what I don't do is allow people to walk all over me.  Therein lay my dilemma.  This was my boss and confronting him put me in danger of being branded a bitch.  All weekend I thought about what I would say.  I was determined not to let this go but to deal with it head-on.  

Yesterday, I did have a chance to speak my mind to my principal.  I have no delusions that my words made any real impact.  But my words were not for him. They were for me.  They were my affirmation that I am deserving of respect and that I will not tolerate anything less.  I am not a fighter by nature, but I will stand up for the things I believe in.  And if that makes me a bitch, then so be it.

So, today I will have a team of two or three people, most likely individuals who really don't know anything about teaching or life in the classroom, come into my room for ten minutes and determine . . . I don't really know what they will determine.  It doesn't actually matter.  I won't be putting on a show for them. Instead, I will be doing what I always try to do:  I will be doing the best I can for the students in my room.  Maybe in those few minutes I will shine.  Maybe I won't.  In the end, I will let my students be the judge of that.

Contemplation of a Crescent Moon

"Did you see the moon?"

My husband's voice rose above the rhythmic pounding of our feet as we wound our way through the deserted park in the early morning stillness. I lifted my eyes to the darkened sky punctuated with sparkling points of starlight.  There, hanging almost shyly just above the roofs of the houses bordering the neighborhood park was the slightest sliver of a moon glowing a soft, pale orange.  It was so slight, in fact, it could have been easily missed in the great expanse of darkness.  It occurred to me that maybe that is what it hoped, that it could escape notice as it made its journey across the sky and disappeared into the light of day.  Perhaps it was focused, not on impressing others with its brilliance, but simply on completing the course that it had been set to follow.

And perhaps it did not understand just how beautiful it really was, for this was not the moon that prompts people to exclaim, "Did you see the moon last night?" That is a question usually reserved for the biggest, flashiest of full moons. But how much do we miss when all we notice is the biggest and the brightest?

It is easy to recognize those who stand out the most.  But what about the ones who hang quietly back? Do we see the beauty that they, too, contribute to the world?  Or are we too busy being dazzled by the ones who put on a grandiose display?  Which ones do we praise and compliment and congratulate on a job well done?  And which ones do we fail to fully appreciate for their gentle gifts that they quietly offer?

These thoughts churned in my mind as our walk took us in a direction that turned our backs to the moon.  As I contemplated these ideas I saw the faces of my students: the ones who shine brightly and the ones who provide a softer glow; the ones society will acknowledge and the ones that it will either pass over or want to "fix," molding them to fit their own vision of what is valuable. 

As we turned toward home, the moon once again came into view.  It was higher now, having continued on its journey as I continued on mine.  My eyes lingered on that slight little sliver of moon and I smiled.  It didn't need to be any bigger or any brighter. It had a gift no full moon could offer.  It was perfect just the way it was.

Bruised Toes and Orange Juice

I am horrible at juggling.

I remember when I was a kid my dad would grab three oranges from the fruit bowl and effortlessly toss them in the air.  Around and around they would go in perfect synchronicity.  He made it look so easy.  Certainly I could do that too.

My efforts only resulted in bruised toes and orange juice.

Imagine my horror, then, when I discovered that life as an adult is all about juggling.  And it seems the older you get, the more difficult it becomes, with more and more objects being thrown your way while those who mercilessly throw them chant, "Juggle, juggle, juggle!"  There you are, center stage, frantically trying to keep everything moving, knowing a blunder is inevitable and everything will go crashing to the floor.

Work. Home. Family. They all have their demands that need to be met, quite often simultaneously. Let us not forget that inner-voice that screams up from the deep every once in a while, "What about me?" Exercise.  Reading. Writing. Time with friends.  Time alone. So many balls in the air, going around all at once, no time to stop.  Must. Keep. Moving.

That's how I've been feeling, especially since returning to work full-time after working part-time for seven years.  Trying to tackle to-do lists ten miles long and growing, all the while satisfying the needs of those around me, has left me exhausted and overwhelmed.   I look around me, both literally and figuratively, and see so many oranges on the floor.  The house isn't as clean as I would like it.  There are piles of laundry that need to be washed, dried, folded, and put away.  There's the grocery list still to be made, the grocery shopping to be done, and the meals to be prepared.  Three weeks into the school year and I have yet to go online to check up on my middle schooler's grades or my third grader's AR progress.  I haven't made the 2 1/2 hour drive to visit my mom in months.  Beside me sits a bag full of papers from school waiting for me to go through it and lesson plans waiting to be written. Every direction I move, I'm slipping in orange juice.

And yet, oddly enough, this juggling act has filled me with a sense of purpose and accomplishment as well. Because the truth is that, while I may not be doing everything to the level of perfection I would like, I'm doing it.  The kids are clean and fed, and somehow I manage to get them to school each day, on time no less. There is food in the house and a home-cooked meal most nights of the week.  No one has had to go to school or work in clothes recycled from the hamper.  My students have never arrived at class to find me unprepared.  Okay, so my anchor charts may not be Pinterest-worthy, but they get the job done. And while I may still be figuring out exactly how to get there, I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go.  I haven't been writing as often as I would like (unless you count the "writing" I do in my head), but I am writing now. My husband and I have begun walking in the mornings, sneaking in a bit of exercise and cherished time together.  These are all things to feel good about.

It occurred to me the other day that I have been holding myself up to almost impossible standards.  I have been trying to be the wife and mother my mom was without making it the full-time occupation that she did.  Just because it's different doesn't mean it's inferior.  Our lives may not be the mirror image of the one I lived growing up, but it works for us. So what if we don't eat every single dinner at 6:30 p.m. at the kitchen table?  So what if the sheets don't get changed on the exact same day of the week every time? So what if there are piles of papers and piles of books where there shouldn't be?  In the long run, it isn't going to matter. I see my children becoming strong, confident, capable young men.  They know they are loved and cared for. My marriage has never been stronger. And I have never been happier. When I stop to look at my life as it is, without holding it up to the idealized vision in my head, I recognize that while it may not be perfect, it is just fine the way it is. 

Yes, my dad made it look easy, but he was juggling oranges for fun.  He was able to stop whenever he wanted. In life, we don't really have that option.  We have to keep going even when our arms get tired and the thought of keeping one more ball in the air seems like more than we can take. Occasionally, one's going to fall. There will be bruised toes and orange juice from time to time. But we can use that as our opportunity to acknowledge everything that's going right, to recognize how many oranges we manage to keep in the air every day.  It's also a time to decide which ones are truly necessary for our juggling act and which ones can be put aside and saved for another time.  It's our opportunity to pat ourselves on the back, take a deep breath, and start all over again, confident in the knowledge that we can do this.

Bruised toes and orange juice?  That's not failure; it's just a part of every juggler's life.

One Last Time

This month I am participating in Teachers Write!, a virtual summer writing camp for teachers held on Kate Messner's blog, http://www.katemessner.com/blog. Today's lesson was about writing poetry using rhyme schemes. We were instructed to write 12 line, using couplets or quatrains.  It's harder than it sounds!  Trying to convey meaning within the structure of rhyme and meter can be pretty challenging.  I found that it required a lot of on-the-spot revising as I had to change both my ideas about what I wanted to say as well as the words I used to convey those ideas.    

To further complicate matters, I chose to tackle a difficult subject.  Today marks one year since my father passed away.  I have been dealing with a lot of emotions over the last few days, and I knew I wanted to write something today to try to deal with some of those turbulent emotions.  The following is what resulted.

One last time you held my hand,

With your own, so soft and strong.

But like an hourglass dripping sand,

I knew we didn't have long.

One last time you sang a song,

One you had known in days long past.

For a moment, a smile erased the wrong,

A moment that couldn't last.

One last time you took a breath,

And I held onto mine.

I watched you slip away with death,

And said, "I love you" one last time.

Just One Kid

"And it is all for just one kid."

I heard slightly different versions of that sentiment expressed for several weeks, and each time it made me pause.  I never responded, though, mostly because I wasn't sure what I thought about the whole situation myself. I just knew that the implied frustration that we would go out of our way for "just one kid" had triggered some kind of visceral reaction and it wouldn't let me go.

In a way, our entire community, what we held to be true about our school, had been challenged. While the world was reading about and speculating about the transition of Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner, we had our own gender identity drama going on.  Most of us were unaware of what was happening until our principal called us into his office, a grade level at a time, to inform us that a first-grader was adamant about wearing dresses to school.  Then, we were handed a copy of board policy regarding discrimination and told that we would be alerted to when the student would be coming to school dressed in traditionally female attire.

I walked away from that meeting with more questions than answers.  Board policy?  How was that going to help this first grader deal with the questions and teasing that were bound to arise?  How would that help my third graders to understand what was happening and help them to be supportive instead of cruel?  It seemed unreal that this was occurring at our school.  This was just something you read about, right?  Even though we were later given some information from the Gender Spectrum website, we seemed so ill-equipped to handle what lay before us.

I'm not going to try to pretend that I understand gender dysphoria.  I'm not sure anyone who hasn't experienced it possibly could.  I did try.  I tried to imagine what feelings you would have to lead you to the conclusion that you were living life as the wrong gender.  How would you know?  It was something that I just couldn't wrap my head around.

Ultimately, I decided I really didn't need to in order to understand and empathize with the situation that was unfolding at my school.  Even though gender identity itself was something I had never had to deal with, there were some elements with which I could definitely identify.  I began to consider the situation from this young boy's mother's point of view and thought about how difficult it must be to think of sending her child to school to face the inevitable teasing, ostracizing, and worse.  As a mother, I know that you worry about your child even under the best of circumstances.  My own child has had problems at times resulting from an overly sensitive disposition, and I live in fear of him suffering the consequences of openly displaying his feelings in public. The day he told me that he had no one to play with at school broke my heart.  More than anything, mothers want their children to be happy and to be spared any pain, even though we know that isn't really possible.  Every child will need to learn to deal with heartache and disappointment.  But how much greater must it be for someone who stands out so far from the norm? My heart ached for his mom knowing what they all were up against and how cruel people can be.  I also thought what a brave and supportive mother she must be to seek answers to her questions and to be willing to do what was best for her child.

I thought, too, of this young boy willing to risk so much in order to be who he believes in his heart he is.  I know many have criticized those who have called Caitlyn Jenner brave for her transition, but really, how many of us would be willing to risk everything to show our true selves to the world?  Do we not construct facades to protect that true, vulnerable self from the masses?  How much of ourselves do we hide on a daily basis, saving those pieces of ourselves for only the chosen few?  How much do we refuse to acknowledge even to ourselves?  And yet here was a child believing so strongly in something, he was willing to take an enormous risk.  That sounds pretty brave to me.  

Finally, I came back to the sentiment of "just one kid."  Yes, we were spending valuable time, time which we have way too little of, to focus on just this one kid. But that is what makes teaching such a difficult, and ultimately rewarding, job. That is our purpose.  To be there for just one kid.  For every "one kid" that walks through our door.  We get lucky sometimes, and the things we do meet the needs of many of those kids at once.  But each child needs and deserves something special from us.  The bonus of this situation is, if we do it right, we really haven't spent all that time and energy for "just one kid."  We will be teaching all our students about acceptance and kindness and diversity and the importance of judging people not by what they see on the outside but by what resides in the heart of each individual.  We will be teaching them to not act out in fear of that which they do not understand but to seek understanding and compassion instead.  If we do it right, we will be one step closer to making our world a much better place.