It’s been an exhausting two weeks away from my family, traveling for work.

There have been many moments when I have questioned personal and professional choices, when I’ve been disappointed by people, and when I’ve wondered if I should just curl up for a long winter’s nap (I know it’s spring), do (and worry) less, and find a new calling.

But this morning, like last Saturday morning, I got to be with teachers, and not just any teachers, but teachers deeply committed to their practice, to growing in their professional lives and to remaining in a field that often tries to push them out. I got to be in community with these beautiful people who have been in community with one another throughout the year, who are working towards practices grounded in justice within unjust systems, working to make schools places that serve, affirm, and challenge all students, working towards better futures and becoming better teachers.

I love teaching and I love teachers.

I love learning, and I love opportunities to learn alongside teachers.

Teaching and supporting learning within the current contexts of schooling, particularly in public education spaces, is so complex. For teachers committed to more just futures for all students, it is even more complex. And yet, there are teachers who persist. There are teachers who, even after the exhaustion of their school days and through long school years, reach out to community, seek to grow, continue to reconnect to their roots.

Like all humans, teachers are imperfect.

Perhaps teachers are even more aware of their imperfections than the general public. We are, after all, reminded of our imperfections (quite often, in middle school!).

Yet, somehow so many teachers persist in our humanity and strive to be better, for ourselves, our students, our communities and our futures.

Teachers, in all of their complicated humanity, inspire me.

Being around these wonderful educators this morning reminds me of the joys of this work, that education, true lifelong learning, brings forth so much beauty.

This morning also reminded me of the gift of being a teacher educator and the privilege of doing the work in my new context. What a privilege to walk alongside and learn from teachers, to advocate for space for teachers to grow and learn together, to be able to do research that can be used to amplify teacher voices. What an honor to be welcomed into teacher community, to learn and unlearn myself, to remember the importance of joy and rest as part of resistance.

It has been an undeniably exhausting two weeks. There is so much more I could say about these two weeks, about love and mentoring, about frustrations and growth, about speaking from my heart when I cannot be silent, about the complexities that make the world so difficult to navigate, about humanity.

But those things to say are for another day.

I couldn’t be more grateful to be going home.

AND I am grateful to have another home I am building alongside a new-to-me, but beautifully inspiring and growing community.

I am learning to listen to my heart, to stay in my body, to find integrity in the spaces in between. Sometimes it is a space only I know, but I am learning the value of those spaces.

I am growing. I am finding spaces to blossom.

It can be exhausting. I am still working on sustainability. I am finding beauty in community and grounding in the struggle. I am sure I will still have moments when I question all the things.

And also, I think that I can find many answers when I look to community.