School started without me...

School started without me. It did. Last week. School started without me. I’m not there this year, at school, for only the second time in twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years! 

A fellow educator asked me a few weeks ago if I was having the annual back to school dreams/nightmares/panic attacks, even though I am taking this year off. My answer was simple—no. I hadn’t even thought of those dreams until he asked the question. I am sleeping deeply through the night, no nightmares of any sort thankfully, and even taking naps on some days. 

Why, though, am I not at school this year? So many reasons, any one of which certainly suffices as an explanation: the loss of rent-controlled housing, the unsettling changes in The City, the ridiculous cost of living. These were all very important factors in our decision to leave San Francisco, to leave jobs and friends and community behind. 

Another reason, which I understand on a much deeper level now that it is September, is that I was tired, down to the marrow tired. Not burned out, thankfully. I have seen burn out—it’s so disconcerting and sad. I was just tired. I loved the work, the kids, the parents, and, I carried a heavy emotional load for the last ten years. That was so much of the work, to carry their worries, to take away their fears, to reassure them that all was well because all was well. Ten years in, 400 or so kids later, I knew somewhere deep in the recesses of my body that it was time to give myself a break. 

I’m not impulsive, at least not as much as I was when I was younger. I didn’t want to just take another job in some other place, to dive deep back into work, learning a new role and a new town and finding new community. I needed time. We needed time, to reconnect and relax and be restored. 

We also needed time to untie the knots that city life had tied throughout our bodies. There’s no better place for me toheal and grow than in nature, preferably the wild. Being in bear country much of the summer heightened my senses, pushed me to think differently about each step, to listen more intently to sounds around the trail. Few things fill me up more than standing among mountains, breathing the air, taking in the views, watching raptors soar. 

When this trip began, I spent the much of the first month anxious and worried, even panicked at times. I struggled to locate any sort of relaxed state. I was fearful and sad. Would I find another job? What would we do if I couldn’t find another job and place that I loved as much as Burke’s? How would we build a new community of beloved friends? In time, as the minutes and hours and days in nature increased, my worry dissipated. I found myself letting those fears go and trusting that at the end of this journey, we will be exactly where we are supposed to be. It was good to experience the struggle, and even better to move beyond the fear. 

The first time I took a break, after teaching high school for ten years, I had no idea where that year would take me. I spent that year in Sun Valley, Idaho. San Francisco as my future home was not even on my radar. Turns out, San Francisco was my future, and I am so glad that I got to call it home for fourteen years. When I remember this part of my past, I am reminded that if I just trust in the process and keep an open mind and heart as to what the future looks like, all will be well.

Change is a good thing. When I have made change in my life, forced or elected, I’ve always experienced tremendous growth, both personally and professionally. I knew it was time for change in my work life, time to shake things up, face new challenges, grow in ways I can’t yet imagine. We knew it was time for change in our city life, that it was time to reconnect to nature and to explore what lies beyond San Francisco. Turns out, it’s a big, big country, with lots to offer. We’re curious where we’ll be at the end and grateful that we get this time to walk more deliberately towards our future. 

Do I miss not being at school? Yes and no. What I don’t miss is working, for the time being. I do miss the girls, seeing them on the first day in their clean and crisp uniforms, palpable nerves and excitement. I miss the first graders, now second graders, harassing me to “do the ballet!” Long story. I miss the eager yet fearful faces of the seventh graders at the start of public speaking. I miss watching the eighth graders enter with so much anticipation, knowing that I would take care of them as best I could. I also miss the wonderful people that I worked with the last ten years. What an honor it was, to grow beside them, to share the awesome responsibility of educating those girls. Missing them, all of them, even the kindergartener I didn’t get to meet who would have eventually asked me if I was a boy or a girl, means that I honor them and thank them.

Did I make the wrong decision, to miss the first day of school? Absolutely not. I get to miss them and also know, deep in my reviving marrow, that I made a wise and necessary decision, to give myself the gift of time, to write and to think and to just be, with Alanna alongside, in the wild.