Updates

Life has been more or less “okay.”

There are inevitable ups and downs. There are moments of relative calm, and also moments of deep vulnerability.

I am in a season of rawness.

When the weather turns cold, it begins. The days are short and the sun shines for too few hours.

I begin to dream of the beach and all sorts of tropical, sunny locations.

And, it has just started.

It has been a good year for teaching. My students are sweet, loving, and smart–and truly, they are a dream class.

They, of course, experience too much and go through too much. I hug them and love on them as much as I can. I giggle, and talk, and share, and, sometimes, I cry with them.

I also lay in bed thinking of all the ways that I am failing them. I don’t challenge my high achievers enough. I feel frustrated by my talkers or active wigglers…I don’t love them enough.

But, really, I do.

At school, we study and discuss trauma over and over again. It’s necessary, so necessary.

But, it’s also exhausting. I think, sometimes, “Don’t they realize that, for some of us, all of this trauma discussion just RE-traumatizes us?”

We lived it. We live it now, vicariously, as we love and work with our students.

It never lets us truly forget.

I muddle my way through everything else. Struggling with balance.

I worry about my own two kiddos. My daughter, soon to be entering puberty and those fabulous tween years. My son, so boy…wiggly and crude and also still a sensitive heart.

Do they know how much I love them? Teaching can be so emotionally exhausting–do I give them enough of me?

Marriage is still what it is. A work in progress, all the time. My husband doesn’t take care of his own mental health well…but I am learning, slowly, that I cannot make him better or inspire him to change..he has to want to.

But, overall…we are okay.

I am okay.

I am, I think, living a normal life. I have worries and stress. But I also have friends and stress relievers.

I’m figuring it out.

It isn’t all rainbows and puppies. Some days it is mud and monsters.

But…those days end.

That’s the difference–I know now that none of that lasts forever.

Anxiety. Worry. Depression. Sadness.

It is a moment, a day. Maybe longer, at times. But it is not forever.

And knowing that makes all the difference. 💜