emotional health

Starting Back at the Beginning

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In fewer than 48 hours, I return to the classroom after our two-week winter break, and whew! That letdown is hitting hard this year. I have done myself a great service in that I gave myself several days of absolute planless laziness. Hours to just read, nap, watch movies, etc. I needed that, desperately. Usually, I would be kicking and cursing myself right now for such stupidity because I would be neck-deep in grading for report cards that are due next week. However, this year, by some miracle, 95% of the grading is done already, so I thankfully do not have that particular stress currently on my soul.

That doesn’t stop me from being an anxious, sad puddle of a person right now, though. Last night, as I desperately tried to sleep after a very mentally-taxing evening, all my brain could do was think about my classroom and my first lesson next Tuesday. Then I had a random thought (yes, even more random than normal):

“Do I even remember these kids’ names?”

Vacation-related memory atrophy is absolutely a thing. At the end of the school year, my brain shuffles out most of the 150+ names that I had to memorize because it knows that in just a few short weeks, I will be shoving a whole new set of faces and accompanying names into its databanks. However, on the heels of this particular random thought came another:

“If I am struggling to remember what name goes with what face…can I really expect these teenagers to launch right back into schoolwork off the bat? Will they even remember how things work in our classroom? Have they even charged their Chromebooks once during break?”

So I am considering migrating my currently planned lesson and replacing it with a refresher course on how to “do school” after two weeks off. Maybe we could all use a day to start back at the beginning.

That can be scary sometimes, can’t it? Starting over? Starting back? Beginning again? And yet…here we are…at the beginning of another year. We are literally starting back at the beginning. So, with that in mind, why are we not willing to give ourselves the grace that comes with starting over, with being new at something?

We have never seen 2024 before; it is brand new to all of us. These days are still shrink-wrapped and shiny, and we are still wobbly on our new-year legs. It hurts my heart that we expect ourselves to barrel into this year as if we are old hat at it. We aren’t. It’s new; it’s different. Maybe we can allow ourselves to approach it the way we approach a new experience or new skill: one step at a time, with the willingness to take it slowly and learn what’s needed, and giving ourselves and others the grace to say, “It’s okay; that didn’t work so let’s go back, figure out why, and try something else.”

So maybe my coming Tuesday will be about taking it slow and re-learning how to exist in our classroom and in our school instead of throwing myself and my student heroes feet-first into the deep end of Quarter 3 (incidentally, it’s also the longest quarter of the school year). Maybe if I make the time to re-teach them what is needed, then we will be able to move more smoothly along with what is expected as the quarter proceeds. Better to set the bone correctly than to have it heal wrongly and have to re-break it and start over, if you’ll forgive the analogy.

So, as you find yourself at the beginning of this year, please do give yourself the grace of a beginning. It does not need to be perfect; it does not need to be rushed. Review and reinforce what is important for you, whether that is consistency, routine, rest, process steps, etc. Whatever you need as you begin, please give that to yourself now. Rest and re-learning go hand-in-hand. Sometimes we need to start back at the beginning in order to move forward.

An Unfair Comparison

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Author’s Note: This blog post is not aimed at anyone, nor is it an exercise in shaming persons – man or woman, great or small, or what have you. It is simply a post born of a thought and worked through into a premise as I work through my own issues with self-esteem and comparison. You are under no obligation to read it.

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Dear You,

Now, I know that you have read the letters and blog posts that tell you not to compare yourself to others, to not look at their bodies and think yourself fat or unfit or unattractive or what have you. They tell you to remember your power, that you are great/beautiful/handsome/wonderful just the way you are, man or woman. You shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone else; you are individual, you are unique, you are special. Comparing yourself to someone else is unfair to you. And I agree.

But what about me? Yes, me. That one, whether nebulous or specific, that you’re comparing yourself to.  It’s unfair to me, too, you know.  Just as it’s unfair to you when people compare themselves to you. When you compare yourself to me, you not only undo your individuality, you undo mine, too. Such a comparison, at its heart, presumes against the individuality of both the comparer and the compared. It assumes that you and I, or you and someone else, are the same in all things. When you compare yourself to me and wonder why you don’t look this way or do this or have that, you aren’t allowing for one very fundamental detail:

We are not the same person.

Between you and me, there is a plethora of differences – differences in body type, health, family history, maybe ethnicity, life developments and changes, jobs, particular emotional stressors, children or no children, and on and on. So it’s not only unfair to you when you compare yourself and hinge your self-esteem on someone else, but also to the person to whom you are comparing yourself. We are all in this together, but we are all fundamentally different people and far too individual and unique to be comparing ourselves to each other. I am not like you and you are like no one else. So let’s be fair to ourselves but also to others and let them be the special, unique, wonderful people that they are, too.

Thanks, Me