“You will burn + you will burn out; you will be healed + you will come back again.”Â
TW: suicide
As September comes to an end, I am soaking up all of the small moments that made it such a good month. But I am also reminicing back on two past Septembers that remind me just how much I had to go through in order to get here.
At my school this year, the first day of classes was grade 9’s only. A transition day to help grade 9’s adjust to their first week of high school more smoothly. First thing that morning a group of anxious grade 9’s came into my classroom full of questions. As I stood there in front of them, I swear I could feel the world spinning, this group of teens are looking to me for direction, when it was my tough year of grade 9 that was the deciding factor that made me decide to become a teacher.
September 2014… after attending the comfortable Teepee Creek School from Kindergarten through grade 8, I had never been pushed out of my comfort zone in a school setting. When I started grade 9 at the Sexsmith high school, things were already really chaotic at home. We were grieving as a family and our basement had flooded just a few weeks prior, and I quickly learned that Sexsmith Secondary high school was not going to be a place where I fit in. This was not a place where I would be loved or accepted for who I was, who I was not, or who I pretended to be. I didn’t know that the next year of my life would continue to bring unpredicted hurt and heartbreak, leaving me feeling as hurt as I was lost. Struggle seems like such a small word for the huge issues I was having. I felt like I was about to drop on the floor and give up. I felt like I could not carry everything that I was expected to hold onto and deal with at such a young age. I was only 14.
How things ended up playing out in that chapter of life is for another story. I remember on particular day during that time, I was getting scolded by a teacher who was angry at me for not handing something in. I couldn’t tell you a word she said to me during that conversation. But I can tell you exactly what I was thinking… “If you knew everything I was carrying right now, you wouldn’t dream of handing me something else.”
And now here I am, nine years and a whole lot of life lessons later, teaching grade 9, and being everything that I wish I’d had back then.
September 2017… I remember the day so vividly. I came home to a completely empty house. My brother was gone, playing his hockey season away. My parent’s were harvesting. I started making dinner to take to the field, meanwhile trying to figure out the right words to use to tell my parent’s that I had just been placed on academic probation.
I was in grade 12, and a total teacher’s pet. The only reason I had been placed on “academic probation” was because I was failing two classes, meaning that I wasn’t “on track” to graduate at that time. We all knew I would push through. The only reason I was failing at that time was because I was struggling to do school with three undiagnosed learning disabilities. I was always bouncing on the line of passing or not passing, that was most of my high school experience, another big reason that I wanted to become a teacher.
Things were really bad at that point, not only was I struggling with school, but I was missing my brother a lot, my boyfriend at the time was also gone away playing hockey, I was not interested in being my parent’s cook and maid while they were combining. Life just felt impossibly hard.
I came back into the kitchen after delivering that harvest meal. I remember standing there in the empty house. I remember leaning over the kitchen sink. I remember thinking about suicide. I remember thinking about it long and hard. I remember the hopeless feeling. I remember wondering if life would ever get any better.
Somehow, someway, life always finds a way to move forward. A few moves and a whole lotta lessons later, I ended up back in Teepee Creek, delivering harvest meals. But this time, everything was different. I am more me than I have ever been. I am more content than I ever thought I would be. This time, I teach grade 9, and I have become the teacher that I needed. Life these days consists of the small moments: snuggles and walks with Chief, Facetimes and wine nights with friends, a home that feels cozy, eavesdropping on the kids class conversations, friends who check in, soaking in the beautiful fall colors, riding in the combine with my mom, sleepovers with the kids, indulging in a good novel, treating myself to Friday Starbucks, making a good harvest meal… Back then, as I struggled to get through the circumstances of my days, like so many, I thought life would be about the big things I wanted, like getting my degree, getting married or having a baby, and while those things are great, since then I have learned that true happiness is hidden in those little moments. It’s when I hear “Auntie Shayla” or “you’re my favorite teacher”, or when I finally slide into the bathtub and open a Colleen Hoover at the end of a long day, that I realize I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And it was worth every heartbreaking moment that it took to get here.
Just keep going.
Recent Comments