Today, it has been hard to stay present. We had planned to get together with my in-laws to make dumplings for the new year. Then I woke up this morning to the news of the Monterey Park shootings and it felt like the world froze. I protect myself from grief. I am good at surviving. […]
Tag: Struggle
Stillness, Happiness, Hope
It is a new year. For the first time in many years, in the first two weeks of this new year, I have been held, I have been hopeful, and I have been (relatively) still. I get stuff done. I am always running. I am often running from myself, from my fears. Sometimes, I am […]
Tenderness, Tension, Community & Connection: Reflections on #NCTE22
What does it mean to dream? What does it mean to pursue the light? This year’s National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention theme was ¡Sueños! Pursuing the Light. It was the first annual convention held in person since 2019, and it was held in my current hometown of Anaheim, California. I was on […]
Tired
It’s been a long day. This morning, I was attending a Presbytery meeting at a church about 20 minutes from my home. (For those who are not Presbyterian, a Presbytery is like a local regional governing body of churches in the same area. For educators, it is akin to a school district.) Anyways, we were […]
How Do We Care for Ourselves? How Do We Care for One Another?
Content Warning: Trauma; multiple possible mental health triggers related to teaching; disordered eating It has been a long week. I am tired. Among a myriad of meetings and getting a semester off the ground in my new role as department chair, this week, I began analyzing a large data set of current and former P-12 […]
Full & Empty
I have been on a very long journey of accepting my humanity and giving myself grace when I make mistakes. It is not easy. In the past week, I’ve been careless with my words twice and (albeit unintentionally) hurt two people who I think the world of. In both cases, I was too tired to […]
Breathe In, Breathe Out
For the last 4 weeks, I have been holding my breath. It’s not uncommon during this time of year when I am always looking for grief to come find me. But this year, with my (fully-masked) son contracting COVID-19 from his Taekwondo practice just before the new year, the virus making its way unceremoniously through […]
When Grief Doesn’t Look Pretty
I don’t feel like looking for an image. Honestly, I don’t feel like writing about grief. I said as much today. But grief doesn’t always listen. I like to wrap grief in pretty packages of productivity. Today, right at this moment, grief feels heavy. It feels like the weight of all the things I’ve been […]
(W)Resting
Well, we are 12 days into 2022 and clearly this is a year of letting go of what should be and accepting what is. I am tired. I’m partly tired because I have COVID which I got from the member of my family who has religiously worn a KN95 mask outside of our house since […]
Transition
I am very bad with transitions. When I can breathe and treat myself with grace and generosity, I can see that it is understandable that transitions and uncertainty are stressful for me. I am a trauma survivor. My experiences with multiple acute traumatic incidents over time and prolonged grief have led me to crave certainty, […]