Moving
to Mississippi was one of the strangest decisions I have ever made. In many
ways I am still confused as to why I am here or why I haven't left yet but one
thing is clear: it's not really about me and my own personal happiness, at
least not at this point. As I have told my close friends, I have reached the
point of no return. I have seen too much, invested too much and already loved
too much to be able to step aside from it all with a comfortable ease. While
many days I wake up exhausted from my five to six hours of sleep at 6:47 am on
the dot (without fail) I could not walk away from my kids or from the life I am
slowly beginning to build here with the fractured pieces of my old self.
This
week was one of those weeks that just wore me thin. But it really was nothing
compared to the initial shock, pain and frustration that accompanied my move
here a few months ago when my world unraveled and my life was altered in ways
that I never thought it would be. Things and relationships that I thought would
be the most stable points of my life were suddenly ripped from my foundation
and I was left reeling.
I
had come in bright-eyed, in eager anticipation of inspiring kids in my
classroom, of entering into America's underbelly and waging war on structural
injustice and corporal sin. However all the reasons that I had felt inspired to
join the movement to teach in a low-income area became distant and dim as I was
met with the unraveling of my personal life and more practical and miniscule
challenges such as: What to do about pencils and pencil sharpening in a second
grade classroom. Will kids be allowed to sharpen pencils whenever they want?
Will they have to ask you for a pencil or can they get one themselves? Will
they have a special hand signal letting you know that what they really need is
a sharpened pencil?
While
these questions may seem utterly ridiculous to a person who has never taught
lower elementary, the concern is completely valid, I can assure you. Worrying
about pencil sharpening actually matters because twenty broken pencils can turn
into a logistical nightmare if you are found in the middle of a lesson with no
pointy graphite ammunition to replenish your kids' supplies should they all
decide to break their pencil tips at once, which as far-fetched as it sounds,
can happen. It has happened to me.
The
little things matter. Bathroom breaks matter, having a stock-pile of tissue
matters, understanding my kids' accents matters, behavior charts matter, parent
communication matters, crayons matter, books matter, having a set of dice
matters. Literally any little thing that you could possibly think of
matters.
And
so I have thrown myself headlong into the litte things. The laminating of
number cards, the creating and decorating of writing folders, the mini-lessons
on kindness, the mini lessons on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and the way
my heart sings when Ariel asks me for "that book on Malcolm X." In
the midst of this strange dedication to laminating and phonics activities I
have found joy. I wouldn't call it happiness because that superficial feeling of
bubbliness while it exists on certain days and in certain moments is gone in
others, but I would call it joy because joy is deep rooted, founded in Christ's
love for me and for my precious children, who are my undeserved gifts.
In
the midst of the little things I am confident that while I may not be
"waging war" in the ways that I had imagined I am impacting change in
my kids' lives by the mere fact that I am in it. And by sheer nature of the
impact, I too am being molded and shifted into (what I pray is) a more Christ-like
woman, a woman who lives selflessly and has her gaze set eternally on
Him.
Yes.
My life was turned inside out when I moved here. Yes. It is hard to wake up
some days. Yes. I feel like a failure when my kids talk over my lessons at
times, quite a bit in fact.
But
a lesson I fast learned when my plans derailed and my strength was waning early
into the journey was that not only could it be much, much worse for me but also
and most importantly that I was eternally held by a love that will never let me
go. And that because of this I can let my weaknesses be His triumphs, I can let
my failures be His victories and I can let my frustrations be His opportunities
to show up and He always does.
Because
of this I can freely throw myself into the little things and trust that the
work I am doing is in some way waging war on the big things I came here to
fight and topple. Because of this I can live in this strange place away from my
friends and family and rest in the fact that it's not about me and that who it
really is about is: Jervarious, Makea, James and the 17 other beautiful minds
that fill my classroom every day by 7:50 am as they busily chat (they are
supposed to be quiet) and hum away on their morning work.
When
I think of them and the little things they do such as, the fact that Omar has
had Barack Obama's biography for at least eight independent reading periods now
and that today he told me he wanted to be president and I seriously believe he
could be, or the fact that my kids beg me to wear my hair down and when I do
they insist on braiding it, or how my kids remember my lesson on Martin Luther
King and the fact that he taught us to "love our enemies." Yes. Those
little things, when I think of these I am no longer confused and being here
begins to feel more like home. I am right where I am supposed to be.
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