To be honest, I’ve been struggling.
This struggle is constant. i was reminded of this struggle as I tried to sleep last night. You see, today was the first day back from a holiday. Did I sleep?
Hell, no! I maybe slept 2 hours. I was anxious. I would sleep for 10 minutes and wake up in a panicked sweat. Sometimes, barely able to breathe. This job is stressful. My hair is grey. My face looks like a pimple laden 13 year old’s. We are close to state testing. Nothing I seem to do right matters. DROWNING.
However, there is beauty in the chaos. Was today hard? Absolutly. I taught bored, sleep deprived, hungry middle school kids who may say t they hate school, but for many of them school is the only place of solace. They walked in today, many coming by my room to say “hello.” Almost as if to just check on my consistency, many of them having made poor choices right before break. We started today fresh. They fight being loved. Somedays I fight loving them. But at the end of the day, though I had almost no sleep because of crazy amounts of anxiety, children who needed me greeted me. My hello means something. My hug or warm look can change their lives.
So as I sit here and reflect on the heavy laden heart I carry around, the pimple laden face I struggle to mask with makeup, and the greys who no longer can be colored over… I feel beautiful. I feel beautiful because this struggle is what makes me beautiful. This struggle is what will change lives and as I firmly believe, lives are still able to change even though it may look or seem impossible. Somedays I doubt this, but all it takes is one warm embrace or one conversation and I’m hooked yet again to this work and movement.
As I am learning, to truly live is to lose your life. This life is lost and in return I don’t see a pile of ashes that once was but beautiful seedlings ready to grow and bloom and change the world.