Last day of the work week yesterday, headed into work again this morning for a locker move-in thing and probably a climbing session in the afternoon to unwind. I had such an emotional hangover yesterday from the swing down on Thursday it was difficult to make it through the morning without looking like I was dying of allergies, a convenient excuse when I don’t want to talk about what is really going on.

On top of things going a bit sideways at the PD session, I missed talking to the kids on Thursday and that didn’t help things at all. They were busy and I had already kind of lost my composure when another teacher new to campus mentioned a past connection with my ex followed by a long-time colleague asking how I was doing. Not well at that particular moment. I made a controlled break for my classroom and then when I came back out to the cafeteria and got in line for something to eat, my kids called while I was in line.

I stepped out to take the call and tried to keep the call as steady as possible but of course they could hear in my voice where I was at. And that was what started off the day.

We had some presentations and then our PLC meeting to talk about plans for the year. I tried to incorporate a lot of what I learned this week in the sessions into laying some groundwork for more consent-based communication with a focus on respecting the humanity of each other and working on closure/tap-out when difficult conversations are finished or tabled for another time. Imagine having that hard conversation and then taking a minute to just recognize how difficult it is for the other person in the conversation to be there too. Will see how all of that goes.

Made it home after getting the rest of my work done and got things ready for Nina’s birthday party. I made some vegan taco mix (didn’t do the tortillas) that I’ve been making all summer and they were good! I’ll take some to the work potluck on Monday too since there is at least one vegan on campus and it’s nice to have something not cheese and meat based on the table.

I’m also trying to shift my thinking a bit, I need a stronger position in my mind and taking ownership of the fact that the things that I’m going through are for a reason. I spent many years trying to sustain on less than I needed but not always because I had just given up, there were plenty of years where I was advocating for myself and not being heard and that sucks. I was so worried about being perceived as the “bad guy” that I was unwilling to stick up for myself and it broke me down and kept doing it until I reached where I was at the beginning of the summer. I listened to my DMA poem last night on the telephone we will use in the installation in September, a poem I wrote after the performance and panic attack. My friend Rae was talking to me about the poem and I realized that I was writing my own exit letter, nothing too dramatic of course, but I had pushed myself so far down that it was either become my mother or become something else. I chose else. I was thinking about mantras yesterday afternoon and I thought about the phrase “My life was all about the “what if?” but now it is all about the “what now?”

This morning, as I was getting ready for work and processing the past few days, I remembered I heard this song on a podcast years ago. I don’t remember what the podcast was but I remember I was running. I remember exactly where I was, on Oak Street and Fry running towards Bonnie Brae and this song came on. I was probably hurt at the time already and it really resonated with me then and it is giving me some perspective now.