Brave Beginning

I have decided that the whole post college graduation phase is like the first awkward months of middle school. You feel confused and unsure about nearly everything--uncertain about plans and jobs, and even if you have a plan or a job, you feel uncertain about how you’ll do, if you’re prepared. If you’re moving to a new city by yourself, there are a whole different slew of worries and anxieties—where do I live? How do I find a new social group? What do I do when I get home from work? It’s scary, and if I’m being completely honest, a bit lonely.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m teaching middle school Language Arts in Charlotte for the next two years. Right now, I’m trying to capitalize on this connection between awkward middle school angst and wandering, confused college graduate. Maybe it will provide me with some extra insight into my students. We’ll see.

During my last few months and weeks at Carolina, I felt a lot like I was grasping up moments and people, hoarding them as if they were jewels I could keep. I felt as if my friends were these beautiful shining feathers being blown away from me, and as much as I tried to grab them and hold them in my hands, close to me, they were flittering through my fingers, flying out of my reach and away. But life is change. So we sometimes have to leave the people and places that we love.

Prior to this time in my life, I have been a little critical of blogs. Nothing against bloggers, but to me they seemed a bit self-indulgent. Why would anyone want to read about the little trivialities of my life, or my musings on any particular subject?

But now, for the first time—and perhaps in my own unique an act of self-indulgence—I have decided to write one. I’m writing because I want to keep up with all of you. By the same token, I hope you’ll email or call me and update me on your much more interesting lives. I may not be able to hold onto the feathers anymore, but I still want to know where they’ve flown, how they’ve changed shape.

I’m also writing for an openly selfish reason. I’m writing because I don’t want to lose myself. Over the summer, in the beastly Teach For America training known as Institute, which I can only briefly describe as the most insanely difficult 5 weeks of my life, I felt like a robot going through the motions of life. In the constant bustle of teaching, sitting in sessions, writing lesson plans and attempting to absorb as much information as humanly possible, I started to lose who I was. I forgot what I was passionate about, what I liked to do, what was good and unique about me. As I said to my friend Amy, (who is a shining example of the fact that even when you think you’ve already been blessed with the kindest, most loving friends anyone could ever have, you can meet another one.) I feared that once I started teaching I would forget to be a real person and instead only be a harried, stressed out, struggling, crazy person who happened to teach middle school.

With 5 weeks of teaching behind me, I can say that this is partially true already. I do little outside the realm of teaching. It’s a really good day if I have time to cook dinner and go for a run. With dwindling personal time and general busyness, I thought writing a little would help me stay sane. I plan to reflect on the struggles and failures—and maybe with some luck, small triumphs—of my first year teaching. I also may reflect on this rather confusing phase of being a real grown up.

I have posters in my classroom with photographs and quotes from some famous African American and Latino Writers. I made the posters because I wanted my students to have role models that look like them, but also because I need inspiration myself. Lately, the quote that keeps sticking with me is one by Sandra Cisernos. Her writing is real and funny and—importantly to me—relevant to my 6th graders. In The House on Mango Street, she speaks through the gnarled bed-bound character Aunt Lupe, who says to the young narrator Esperanza, “You must keep writing. It will keep you free.”

So I am going to attempt to keep a blog this year. I apologize in advance it’s bad writing, or overly self-indulgent and whiny writing. And, in the spirit of doing brave things, (Writing like this can be scary, you know? Scary in a vulnerable kind of way.) and doing things that help us remind ourselves that we are in fact real people with real joys and passions and thoughts beyond what we do during the day to pay our bills or make the grades, I challenge you, dear friends, to do something this year that makes you feel that you, yes you, are worth it.