An Unfolding Journey

Hello!

Last week, I cried in front of the kids for the first time. I ended up having to supervise them during my break time, I was way outnumbered, and it was hot outside. On top of that, I have already been feeling a lot of sad things about the end of the year. I might not see these kids again, and they have changed my life so fundamentally, that that feels weird and sad. So when multiple students were yelling rude things at me, I just kind of lost it and started crying. It turns out crying in front of students mostly sucks because right after you have to start modelling an appropriate emotional response. You have to assure them a million times that you're okay, and you have to explain a million times why you started cryng in the first place. It's worth it to make sure that my kiddos understand healthy emotional responses, especially when they are lacking those kind of role models in their lives, but it also sucks when you don't want to deal with your feelings, you just want to cry it out and move on. However, through all of that, I was mostly just frustrated that I had managed to not cry in front of the kids all the way up until the last full week of school. It was annoying that I had survived so many other hard times and terrible days, but I couldn't finish the final stretch. And then I happened upon this quote. And I realized that all of the ups and downs are equally important to my journey. That this journey is unfolding exactly as it should be. Even if it feels like it isn't. Even when that means crying in front of the kids and spending the last week of school explaining to kids why adults cry sometimes. -Megan