Hope

The push and the pull.... I really want to write about my reluctance to write, but the voice in my head tells me not to. The voice reminds me that I write about this often enough. I write about how writing sometimes eases the pain, but lately, the dull drums have taken over. I have so much sorrow and so little direction because of circumstances outside of my control. I decided to focus on gratitude. But I have a hard time writing about my gratitude without typing about the counterpart. The heartache and sorrow. The poor me and the brokenness. For more than one day I have stared and not won the battle with the vast space of blank white emptiness. I have started some threads and they dwindled off. Some of this from sheer exhaustion. Exhaustion that comes from long hours and an emotional battering.

I am a third year teacher, looking for a job for a fourth year. It is not pretty on the resume. It is grueling. And even with the state-wide job board, it is time consuming... every. single. time. The applications take forever. And how do you explain to someone the quirky ins and outs of a district that for all intensive purposes is dysfunctional? That throws money into things only to change its mind before the miracle happens? This causes an outflowing of money that leaves a budget deficit that they don't understand or know how to deal with. But experience says that they will do this again, they will throw dollars after some new thing, only to yank the funding before they see the fruit of it. You can blame our governor, because he has done horrific things to our education system, but the truth is, my school district has been doing foolish stuff like this for far longer than these crazy hateful cuts have been getting handed down. While I am handing out blame, I can ask myself, "Why did I get on the roller coaster?" Roller coasters go around, they never change their course. Every single time it is the same ride. I willingly got on. And I can tell you why. It felt "right." After all this time I went with what felt right. But I also took the job because I love to teach. I wanted to teach. I wanted to ignite the passion in the students and I wanted to contribute to their knowledge and help them to find out how to drive their learning.

So I am grateful. I am grateful for the opportunity to teach. To learn. I learned so much this year. I have so much left to learn. And as a believer in life-long learning, the fact that my life is not over, is driven home by how much there is to learn. Much to learn about working with others, and much to learn about taking direction, and taking initiative. So. Much. To. Learn.

Today I woke up grateful for the hope that is born each day in the Spring. The warmth of the sun and the freshness of the breeze and the newness of each day. I woke up in the midst of my sorrow with praise in my heart. Spring brings hope with it by its very nature. It wakes the earth and awakens the song of her inhabitants. I hear the robins and cardinals singing their joy this morning and I feel the hope.

The next right job, career, beginning is out there. I can feel it in my soul today. I think it is spelled H-O-P-E.