What I Know

The last weeks of July have always meant preparation for me. Making plans for a new school, a new grade level, a new team, a new position, or a new group of students. Attending courses, learning something useful for the new school year, and buying fun resources at Target. July has also meant vacationing somewhere away from home, repacking bags often, recharging energies with family and friends, fire pits, date nights at wineries, and Midwest views. This July is different, and not just because of the pandemic.

This July, I am not preparing for a new school year, and I don’t know when I’ll be working again, or what I’ll be doing. I am not learning about anything new because I don’t know what I’ll do next so I have no motivation. Soon, I’ll be repacking Tim’s bags as he gets ready to move to the US without me. I will stay in Cairo for an undetermined period, which we hope is not long. Those are the only things certain about this month.

July has always been so reassuring for me; this time, it’s filled with unknowns. When people ask me about my status, I have nothing to give them. When they ask how I’m doing, I have nothing candid to say. “It must be frustrating,” they say… I just don’t know, and what I do know, I am emotionally tired of repeating because it just reminds me of the uncertainty that comes at the end of my answer.

One thing I know is that such uncertainty is building up. That fact led me here because writing helps me release. The issue was that the first few drafts I wrote sounded a bit like “stop asking me about my status,” and that’s just rude. Then I thought I’d write about something completely unrelated to my current situation: teaching. Bad idea. When I tried, I felt like the bird telling a fish how to swim. I don’t feel like I belong anymore, which is ridiculous because I am still an educator. Writing about teaching felt like sinking deeper.

I thought that maybe writing wasn’t such a great idea after all. I switched to podcasts, sleeping longer, Netflix, an addictive game on the phone, and a book about positive world facts. This helped just for a bit. My mind still wanted to write. So this is another attempt. This time I thought I’d write about what I know without worrying about form or flow. That seems to be the pattern for writing I do feel like posting here.

So I’ll start with the one thing I honestly don’t want to keep discussing. I am currently in Cairo, waiting for some paperwork before I can fly to the US. I don’t have a timeline yet. Everyone will know once I have a date. I know that this situation is helping me become more tolerant and patient. It’s also given me the time to pull out idle goals and begin entertaining ideas about my next steps. Those I work closely with know that I’ve wanted to do something beyond the classroom. I’ve been flirting with coaching ideas for quite a while now, and this time, I don’t have a reason not to make the first move.

So far, so good.

I start writing a few lines and until I remember the pandemic and the changes coming to education. Now I can no longer picture that ideal job because I can’t imagine a bunch of students and teachers working together in a room. I can’t picture coaching someone on reading conferences because it’s no longer safe to do so. Everything that I love sharing about teaching has now become dangerous. So what then? I fall back into the “I don’t know,” and I feel like dropping this post. But I keep writing because that’s what Liz says we should do.

Perhaps I won’t get to coach the way I know coaching, maybe coaching will be talking to my friend Sam about third-grade or other coworkers that have asked me about launching workshop. Maybe coaching will be writing about writers’ notebooks and options for doing so virtually. I wonder if coaching for me these days will be helping friends who want to home-school their children and have asked me about essentials for kindergartners. These ideas bring me back up and I choose to stay here.

Writing these thoughts led me to a better place. I now know that my escape button is to swim towards action. I need to feel useful; that’s what I know. I have to make my list of “feel good” activities soon, that I know. I have to get back to that book even when it pisses me off, that I know. I know that I’m doing better than this morning, and that’s enough for now. I should go back to the gratitude journal, yep. I need to keep in mind how it helps to write things down, especially when I’ve accidentally let fear sit on the driver’s seat.

I suck at writing endings, that I know too!