This past week concluded my decade of service in education. How did I celebrate, you might ask? By taking a 3-hour nap. 🙂 Hello, sweet summer.

Teaching high school and middle school English for 7+ years total, followed by 2.5 years in special education. Girl, I was exhausted.

I think I really do have an impostor syndrome, bad, when it comes to teaching. Honestly, most of the time I don’t think I really do much. But occasionally a student, a friend/colleague, or a parent or two will reflect back some goodness that takes me by surprise and makes me wonder if teaching is just like humaning; it is messy. All you can do is show up, be you, stay open, and try shit.

And that I’ve done, and I do.

Magic-making is messy.

Speaking of, I finished my manuscript last month! A first draft of a novel- shitty, of course, as are all proper first drafts made by humans. But when I got to the end, I was satisfied. (In the past I had written two first drafts that were just dead; leaving me with the most profound sense of emptiness. After the second one, I actually cried. And those were not sweet tears of relief like you see in the movies, either.) But this one breathed back – just a little – a bit of heat, a bit of truth, a bit of fun. That means I did it. The real me wrote this thing. There’s life here. So I’m happy.

The manuscript is resting in the drawer now, and I hope to get back to it one day.

And those are my early summertime updates.