This school year............last day is tomorrow....... within reach................... nearly here.......and when I think about this year it feels like three years.......it was by far the most difficult year in all my life.......the beginning of this year found me having already done nearly six months in the house with my kids doing our quarantine thing. Which was such a blessing, filled with such beautiful quality time, but not easy by any means..........I was missing people and missing life in so many ways.......then right before school began I was frantically figuring out what to do for Gabe because he is high risk for Covid.........so I made the extremely difficult decision to take a 12 week leave from work for him........it was such a hard decision to make.......I felt so conflicted........like I was leaving all my teacher family high and dry.....they were all so apprehensive at the thought of starting this school year too and I felt like I should be there with them........I also knew I was taking a huge hit financially, but yet I knew it was the right thing to do.........I just knew it..........so I helped Gabe get up and running for school and learning from home, and got to spend so much quality time with Madeline, and it was all such a gift...........a trial transformed into a blessing........the best kind...............then came November and I began back to work on a virtual platform from home through January.......when I began in NovemberI hadn't met my class yet, could barely share my screen on my computer, knew nothing of any of the technology my colleagues had been using up until that point, but I had no choice but to jump in both feet and figure it out......and I did..........I learned so much at a rapid rate, fast and furiously.........and my technology as well as my virtual teaching skills increased exponentially each and every day........then came Nick being in quarantine over Christmas break and all the stress that arrived along with that.......such a stressful three weeks........a very lonely and a very difficult time for all of us.....and then he walked out the door on January 7th.........and I am set to return to in person teaching a week later........and all I could think about was how on earth I was going to be able to do that??????.......Learn to teach hybrid, go back to work, do all that I have to do........with my heart breaking the way it was.......it truly seemed impossible..............but I had no choice..........and I just trusted and did it.................and those first six weeks were so challenging.........trying to hang in......trying to learn my new hybrid schedule, the new way of teaching in person, and managing my deep heartache...........all alongside trying to protect myself and my family from Covid.........it was like nothing I had ever experienced in all my life...........but soon I found my sea legs and just kept going.........and then came the snow.........just so much snow........and I truly feel that snow was a gift........it made me have to push myself, and do, and clear it, or be taken over.........literally........it felt like a metaphor for my life.......it showed up needing to be addressed and so I did........and in all that adversity and pushing me to my limits, I found my strength, my courage, my ability to stand in the hard and face it, stare it down, and just KEEP ON GOING........even if I am scared, even if I am unsure, even if I don't think I can..................... even then........especially then........the stuff that scares us is the stuff that makes us........and in that fear we find our will.............and where there is a will there is most certainly a way.........each and every day........so as I sit here knowing tomorrow is the last day of school I could weep with relief, and cheer and jump up and down with such a feeling of accomplishment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!........one that only arrives when you do super hard things.....things you thought you never could but DID!!!!! Bring on SWEET SUMMER:):) YIPPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jperuso
Comments