Fresh Starts

It seems like it's been forever since I've written on this blog, though I haven't technically stopped writing.  Wow... where do I even begin?  So much has changed since that last blog post in January 2019.  Since then, I've suffered an ongoing major mental health crisis, gotten engaged, gotten married, continued to battle mental health issues, experienced the most challenging year of my professional career, moved twice (technically), and now here we are in the middle of a quarantine because of a global health pandemic.  This is really not where I would have seen myself in 2020 when I wrote that last post. 

So now seems like as good a time as any for fresh starts.  I have a new name.  So maybe it's time for a new blog name.  My interests and passions have changed... so maybe it's time the format of this blog changed.  I'm not sure, exactly.  I find myself building the plane as I fly most days, but I think for now I will keep adding to the existing blog because it certainly is a time capsule of my evolution... both as a teacher and as a human. 

I've played around with the design of these pages so the "physical" change will reflect the "content" change, but I can't really find exactly what I'm looking for.  Does that even really matter?  Aren't the messages I communicate more important than the appearance of the pages themselves?  (Hmmm... sounds similar to another identify crisis I'm facing, but I'll save that for a later post.)

I look back at my old content and think... what was I thinking?  I know exactly what I was thinking... do it like everyone else!  But that's the problem.  I'm not everyone else, and I've never been everyone else, and it's about time that I start being okay with that.  Those early posts feel so amateur and commercial to me.  I debated about deleting them, hiding them, just scrapping the whole blog and starting over... but like I said, I guess it shows the footprints of where I've been and the mark of when and how I broke free from the molds of what social media content should look like for a teacher and entrepreneur. 

I think now I want to expand the horizons of my writing.  Why should I separate the professional from the personal?  After all, aren't I made of both parts... equally?  Aren't we all just "persons" trying to make it in our "professions"? 

So I'm taking a metaphorical leap of faith here.  I want to really, once and for all, be more diligent about posting, about writing, about sharing my struggles and victories publicly (to hopefully help or encourage someone else).  Yet I am tired of typical social media platforms because they're feeding my insecurities as a woman, so I'm stepping away from that.  Perhaps you are tired of the same... maybe this is a place where I can still share my ideas, my musings, my passions, and my longings... but in this platform, I can still protect my mind by shutting out those comparative images and the dog-and-pony show posts that leave us often feeling less than rather than genuinely inspired.  I want ONE place to document it all... ideas that I have for my professional career, yes.  But also my thoughts and ideas about REAL educational issues that our profession is facing.  And beyond that... what about all the things that I'm facing as a Christian woman today?  As someone in an ongoing battle for her mental health?  As someone who's recently married and trying to figure out that whole world?  I think I'm just going to put it all here. Because that's my reality.  I am ALL of those things, all of those people. 

And because I'm 34 now, and I think it's time for some fresh starts.