construction

i find it funny that in a monumental year of change in my life, i am unable to pick up a pen. it is not that i've converted to the keyboard, because the pen and paper have always been my first love, but i've been shy about committing words the same way i've committed my life. i am just that astounded by what has changed, by my willingness to open up, accept that i am not always right, not always in control, and grow up. while people have often told me that i am the one that holds it together, i always feel one step away from falling apart, in at least one facet of my life.

but it was time, because from here, it's alllll construction. this is about building - metaphorically, literally, professionally, personally and spiritually. i have always been horrible at holding up the boundaries between professional and personal. i don't know how not to tell you the whole story of who i am. i don't think it's real to pretend that teachers are fractured people without home lives, their own struggles, who have made us who we are. and i don't know how to teach without telling you stories.

so i want to tell you a story. this one is about a home i've held onto white white knuckles for 4 years, a crazy, hectic and wonderful cacophony of students and teachers, who truly do interact like family. unfortunately, our family was separated, because schools cannot be families, too... and we've had to try to maintain our identity, while being told to drastically change. we are losing this battle, but not the war. because no matter where we land, we will stay together. this is how families are. i may not always be around, but i try to be when you need me... and have learned to be vulnerable from you, too. you will come to my wedding, hold my children, tell me how college is going, how you are growing, what you are reading. you are a part of my breath, you are a part of my soul.

i am tired of being told that things are getting torn down. i am tired of destruction, i want construction to take precedence in each and every person's own life, in their passion, in their spirit, their family and their career. i want to sodder in a new degree of happiness, build an extra room for the expansion in my heart. i want to take the roof off my house sometimes, though sometimes i will lay bricks in a threshold, for a moment. i refuse to deconstruct, disconnect, detach, when there's so much room for us to grow.

so let's build, please. because this is for life, and for the growth that is always possible.