This Story is Not Over

Do you ever have those moments where you won­der how on earth you are going to describe a feel­ing, when you already know an ade­quate adjec­tive does­n’t even exist in the first place?

No?

Well I’m hav­ing one of those moments right now.

Friends, in short, I am blown away.

Vot­ing clos­es in a few hours (see my last post for details!) and there are goose­bumps on my arms when I tell you that I nev­er, in my wildest dreams, could have imag­ined the sup­port that has come from every cor­ner of the globe. I am beyond hum­bled and moved by your unwa­ver­ing belief in me and regard­less of the out­come, I will car­ry the warmth of your thoughts with me for many years to come.

And just so we’re clear, I’m writ­ing this post while under a blan­ket and wear­ing sweat­pants, a fleece, and fuzzy slip­pers in August…so you can have it on good author­i­ty that those are 100% authen­tic emo­tion­al goosebumps.

Just in case you were skep­ti­cal of my rock-star sta­tus circulation.

In oth­er news, two weeks ago I cleaned out my classroom.

I had been dread­ing it for weeks.

And there may or may not have been sap­py coun­try music songs on repeat dur­ing the dri­ve to school, because you can’t exact­ly pre­pare your­self to see sev­en years of teach­ing packed into brown box­es in a cor­ner office.

But, truth be told?

It was kind of fun.

Ok fine.

After a good friend arrived, and after I put on my Find­ing Nemo hat that just hap­pened to be on the top of the pile, and after I start­ed find­ing hilar­i­ous pho­tos of my amaz­ing students…then it was fun.

That real­ly sur­prised me.

Over these last few months, I have spent so much time pon­der­ing how I would find clo­sure and how I would real­ly move on and how I would take the next step in my life…that I missed the fact that I already did.

The truth is that this sto­ry is not over.

Yes, I was forced to leave a career that I love, but I have a new one that con­tin­ues to stretch and chal­lenge me with each pass­ing day.

Yes, I had to fight back tears when I ran into stu­dents who hugged me and asked when I could come back to school, but now I have clients who are show­ing me how to teach in a new way.

And yes, this is so very far from the life I imag­ined, but what a priv­i­lege it is to be part of this most unex­pect­ed journey.

So friends, from the very bot­tom of my heart, please accept my most sin­cere grat­i­tude. Thank you for lift­ing my spir­its, thank you for your unwa­ver­ing sup­port and ded­i­ca­tion, and thank you for believ­ing in me.

Con­test or no con­test, I won’t let you down.