Who I Am

The beginning of the school year is a funny time. I feel an incredible degree of anticipation (and a fair amount of anxiety) for the new year. Teaching is like a miracle of rebirth -- you have this whole year to build up a community and have your classroom evolve into a brand new microcosm, and then it ends you start again with a different group the following year. You could do the same exact thing every year (but why would you?) and it would still be completely different because of the different personalities, the different climate of the world around us, the different groups of students, the different dynamics of parents, and clearly yourself -- the world builder. I love this about teaching, that it's got a sort of life cycle of its own, and every year is a new chance to have an amazing time with a new group of young people, teaching and learning and growing together.

I am really struggling with some dynamics of this coming year, though...and I am hoping that this anxiety will be short-lived and that this year will be the hardest of all the ones to come because it is a year of transition.

It's the first time I am starting a new year as a full-time, probationary/tenured teacher that I am not embroiled in family building (unless you count the continuing mystery of embryo adoption/donation). And I so recently was. That was so much of my identity, and now it is gone, past tense instead of present and future.

Which wouldn't be such a big deal if I wasn't so open about our journey, or if I didn't have students who are younger siblings of students I had when I had to give the "my phone could ring at any time" spiel, or if it was true as I thought that our websites from last year were going away at the beginning of the year rather than December, so it still says that we are "patiently waiting for the call that will change our lives" when that is just not true anymore. When asked "do you have kids?" I won't get to say "not yet" or "hopefully soon" or "we're working on it," I'm left with, "No." or "I have cats." or "That didn't quite work out as expected."

It wouldn't be such a big deal if I didn't have FOUR things that I have to redo because of this change:

- My website (we are switching to google sites, and I am woefully behind, but my About Me page won't have any mention of kids or their possibility.)
- My Quotes To Inspire Poster (in resource, now work lab this year, I had students pick a quote to lift them up on tough days and surround it with pictures (drawn or printed and colored) that share stuff about who they are -- mine had "MYSTERY BABY" on it with a pink and a blue question mark...clearly can't use that one anymore.)
- My letter for the gen ed English class where I am the consultant teacher (The English teacher I work with has this wonderful start to the year activity where he (and now me, too) writes a letter to the students about beginnings, family of origin, education, career, family, hopes for the year and then we have the students write one back to us. They tell us a TON about the kids. In the interest of being honest and showing that things sometimes take a turn you don't expect, I include my divorce and then  finding Mr. Jess, and then I mentioned the cats and our quest for parenthood through adoption. CLEARLY I have to edit that one. Working on it today and tomorrow and hoping to get it to a place where it is still honest but doesn't make people question my sense of boundaries...ha HA ha ha.)
- My project for my self-contained English Class, Who I Am. Oh, Who I Am. I did it for the first time last year, based on a very short personal essay in the literature textbook called "Who You Are" by Jean Little. It talks about how you can be a million different things and it's okay to not want to define yourself in ORs but instead with ANDs (I hear it in Lori Lavender Luz's voice all the time). That you can be an airline pilot AND a lighthouse keeper in your mind, that now is a time of possibility and you don't have to lock yourself in to one identity...and the identity you see for yourself may be different than what people perceive on the outside. It's short but powerful and I use it as a model text for the students' first piece of writing for me.

Naturally, I write one about myself, too. And again my adoption journey made an appearance, and my hopes for a family of my own beyond me and Bryce. Because that's been so much of Who I Am.

So WHO AM I, now?

Now that I am not striving for something that just didn't come to pass, now that I am not beating my bloodied forehead against a wall without actually going through the door I'd wanted? Now that I had years of trauma and unhappiness trying to get through a door that apparently didn't exist for me, but once I took the other door (for the source of all this door talk, please go to Mali's amazing post about Infertility's Waiting Room, which is a must-read) I found a peace and the promise of a new life, although not the one I thought I'd have?

I think it's so important for students to know that you can work at something and have it not work out, and that you can BE OKAY if this happens. You can adjust your sails, or brush off the ginormous pile of shit you've landed in and take a different, less shit-laden path (yeah, probably going with the sails one if I'm going to address this with 13 year olds). I don't think I have to talk ovaries and miscarriages or anything, but it's okay for me to say we wanted kids and it didn't work out in the end after trying so many things and becoming exhausted in ways I didn't quite know were possible. That life goes on, and it can find a way to be beautiful.

So who am I? 

I'm a teacher who cares not only about her students' academic learning but the development of their character.

I'm a beloved wife of a beloved husband and in awe of the life we've built together, the parts that have worked out better than we'd hoped and the parts that are metamorphosing from the goo of our personal tragedies.

I'm a daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, daughter-in-law, cousin, friend, Mother of Cats.

I am a gardener, a cultivator of green things and fluttery and slithery things that come to visit my wild(ish) spaces.

I am a creator of cozy spaces in my home.

I am the creator of music (when I pick up the violin that has been fairly dormant recently, shame shame shame).

I am a reader, an escapee into different worlds both totally invented and incredibly true.

I am a writer, telling my story with honesty and a smidgen of dark humor. Putting it out there to both not feel so alone in all this and to help other people not feel so alone, to shed a little light on what it's like to not always get what you want, to end up "empty handed" at the end of the day (although my hands are often full of cat, and dirt, and Bryce's broad shoulders or stubbly face, and keyboard, and thin paper pages...).


The beginning of the school year is hard, but beautiful in all the possibilities that await. I will figure out how to rewrite the things that need rewriting in a way that is professional yet is true to who I am, and how things can turn out -- messy but beautiful, petals and thorns, and unfurling buds of all the good stuff to come.

This is not in any way a microblog, but if you'd like to read some actual concise posts, go here and enjoy! :)