Where I am - A Review

It only takes a second, so I take a second. A deep breath fills my lungs with cold air and when I exhale I don’t see it. Once more, with feeling.

I have this problem where I want to act callous, as if I can pretend that I’m layered in an impenetrable suit of armor. As if I can live a life unprovoked. But when my walls are up, my shoulders are too, and that constant shrug builds weight on my shoulders.

It piles up like garbage on the sidewalk, like the dark rings around my eyes, like the worry in my head. But, it only takes a second, one deep breath. Then, it’s gone.

The air, frigid still in the early morning, blows away the weathered scar tissue, the heaping stress, the mental exhaustion. With its end I’m able to refocus my attention on the hundreds of beginnings that are begging for my attention.

I’ve been working at the school for two days, and I’ve found out, again, what it’s like to want someone else to succeed more than myself. I have found out again what it means to be a mentor, a positive role model, a device bent on transferring momentum.

I hardly know their story, their lives, their names, but I know what they’re capable of. The infinite possibilities that exist in a world that didn’t matter until bright and early Monday morning. They helped me realize the walls I was building, and how quickly they’d lead to my own ruin. And it’s only been two days.

I think I’ve always been good at being accidentally vulnerable. This journey has certainly reaffirmed that. And it’s not as if I’d change if I could. The fact that I’m already “here” is a good sign, probably. It gives me the chance to move forward alongside the students I am doing my best to motivate, or, at the very least, the students I’m already seeing be motivated by the fantastic minds who have been training and helping me make this stark transition.

I don’t know if this is what I’ve needed, or even wanted. I don’t know if this is the direction I figured my life would go, or if it’s necessarily a good or a bad thing that this is where it is currently ending up.

All I know, is that this is where I am today and that it certainly feels right. It feels good. It feels like something I can keep doing.

And, at the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?

Thanks for reading. Have a great rest of your week.