After exactly one year and one day as the director of teacher education and a full professor at my current institution, I will be leaving my position on June 2, and return to being an associate professor (for non-academics, this is a step down on the professorial ladder) and a faculty member (on sabbatical for fall term) at my former institution.

Today, this decision was announced publicly so I am announcing it here.

And now that the announcement is done, I can reflect on all this means.

When I was offered this position 15 months ago, I agonized about the right decision. While I loved the institution I was at, my work-life felt unsustainable. I was exhausted. I had been in large public institutions my whole life. While I knew I would miss my colleagues and my students, the opportunity for leadership and mentorship seemed the right one to step in to. Staying didn’t sit right with my heart, so I took a step forward in faith.

I couldn’t have predicted that weeks later, a global pandemic would have taken place.

I have never met the majority of my current colleagues in person. I have led our program via e-mail and zoom this entire year, not to mention teaching new course preps in an entirely different context (a small liberal arts college), during a reaccreditation year, while creating and learning new systems, managing a new grant and trying to move forward important curricular and program shifts that centered equity. I thought I was exhausted 15 months ago, but my body remembered my most exhausted times this year, and relived them.

Did I mention there was a global pandemic?

Then, there was an international family crisis. In this time of pandemic, unfortunately so many have experiences local and global family crises, and been expected to continue with life “as usual” (whatever this means in a global pandemic) because somehow, we are supposed to “pivot” in all directions at all times.

I drew from ALL my resources this year. My mentors, my colleagues, my friends, my family, my loves, my inner strength, my mindfulness practice, my therapist, my writing — all the resources. Thank God for these resources. They helped me to survive and brought me moments of deep joy in the midst of all the things. When I felt unsure of how much longer I could sustain, a text or DM or email or call would make me smile or laugh or cry (cathartic tears), and buoy me just enough to go on.

But I could not keep going on and stay alive.

So, I chose myself, and my health, and my family.

I chose to return to a position that I knew, with faculty that love me deeply, at an institution I know well (for better and for worse). I chose to return to a place of comfort and security where I didn’t have to worry about proving myself or managing all the things.

Most importantly, I chose to return to a semester of sabbatical. Of rest and focus.

After a summer of family, helping my sister get adjusted to life in a new country, far away from the family and friends she has known her whole life, after experiencing the horrors of war in front of her own home.

It is a step “down” in rank, a step backwards, in some respects, but also a way forward.

I have gained relationships I would never have had without this year. I have learned my limits, and have seen myself as a leader. I have had a very different institutional experience than I had experienced previously. I have had to rely on community and faith to get through many days.

And all of this, my full humanity, makes me better — makes me a better human, a better mother, a better teacher, a better leader.

I hope that I’ve left my current institution in a better place as well. I hope I’ve touched the lives of some of those I’ve met and worked with this year in ways that have helped them to grow and develop. I hope I’ve helped students to feel seen, faculty to feel heard and advocated for, and leadership to feel supported. I hope I’ve created systems and changes and planted seeds of transformation that will grow long after I’m gone.

I am stepping back, but I am also moving forward. I am coming home, not to an academic institution, but to myself.

And I am grateful fo the journey, however arduous it has been at times, because it has brought me here.