AERA 2024 owes me truly nothing. [Note for non-education professor friends/readers: AERA is the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. It is the largest professional organization of educational researchers in the country and the conference this year drew over 15,000 registered participants]

I came into AERA 2024 exhausted. As those of you who follow this blog know, it has been a long period of transition for me. In this transition, as I do, I have been in the practice of prioritizing the needs of everyone and everything over my own. After two major scares in the fall (one involving a loss of consciousness and a fall, and the other involving a car accident with my daughter in the car) which thankfully didn’t result in serious physical injury, I knew that things had to change, but getting off the hamster wheel is hard. And I am human. Very fully human.

So, I was not actually looking forward to being in 7 sessions and a committee meeting as part of this conference. I was beyond tired. I had prepared my sessions, which actually reminded me how much I love the research side of what I do, but I was not necessarily excited about them. I was stressed. Years past had me in my head about prospective lack of attendance. Imposter syndrome reared its ugly head and I wondered why I always do too much.

But, the conference ended up being so different from what I had thought it would be.

From the time I arrived at the airport this year, AERA was about community and reconnecting with the best parts of this academic endeavor and (some of) the very best people in my academic (professional and personal) circles. At the airport and boarding the plane, I saw many friends heading to AERA. I got to connect with them on the flight, at the airport after we landed, then saw colleague-friends for meals, coffee, drinks, in the hallways, business meetings and sessions. My heart was so filled with the joy of reconnection.

My sessions were beautiful and, for the most part, very well-attended. I learned so much from my co-presenters, got good feedback from discussants and appreciated the deep engagement from audience members. By the Sunday of the conference (when they were slightly less well-attended), I realized that the number of people in the room wasn’t important, what was important was WHO was in the room, and that exactly the right people would be in the room whether there were 2 of them or 50 of them or 100+ of them. I connected with so many emergent scholars who spoke about the impact of my research on their scholarship and on them, as humans. My heart was so filled with the joy of scholarship, the joy of new connections, and the joy of possible futures.

During AERA, I was challenged with the both/and of counter narratives or counterstories that challenge stereotypes and dominant narratives existing alongside our rights to tell our own stories and have them stand on their own. I was reminded over and over again about the importance of joy, of centering joy, not in a way that refuses to consider the very real challenges to our ways of being, livelihood, and lives, but in ways that reclaim our right to all of these things. I was reminded that my work matters, but that more than anything, I matter, and I’m not replaceable to those who truly love me.

On the plane ride home, I read Shamari Reid’s Humans who Teach which came at the exact perfect moment for me. Shamari is someone I consider both a friend and an academic sibling. His work on humanizing teaching is deeply aligned with my own views about how to make teaching sustainable and joyful as a profession. Also, Shamari walks the talk, and he stands for me and my well-being. For all these things, I am so grateful.

As I read and began what I know will be an ongoing work of healing and letting go of A LOT of perfectionist standards and harmful ways of being, I truly began to feel the words he himself has said to me for several years, that I am love and I am loved and I deserve to be loved right where I am and regardless of what I do. That being alive is enough. That I am enough. Also that love is about nurturing, that yes, love requires sacrifice, but also that at its core, love supports our physical, emotional and spiritual development, and that it starts with self-regard. Yes to all of this.

I am writing this as a commitment to bring myself back to my humanity, in its fullness, as a means of accountability. My humanity is as much my joy as it is my struggle. My humanity is as much my struggle as it is my success. It is all of this, and….

This will be a year of pacing, a year of intention, a year of joy, a year of healing, a year of learning and unlearning, a year of deep self-regard.

And as is human, I am afraid of much of this, but I am also ready to move forward trusting that I am surrounded by love, if I would only accept my full humanity and honor the full humanity of those around me.