How to deal with life when you can't be exceptional 100% of the time.

You didn't really think I had the answer to that question, did you?

I mean, honestly.

This is a problem I deal with often. It's a blessing and a curse really. I'm forever grateful to have been graced with adaptability, skill, quick wit, and resilience. I can make a fully articulated octopus puppet from cardboard, duct tape, and a few wire hangers.

      It allows me to lean in to problems, try solutions without fear of failure, and has garnered me the most diverse and bizarre of resumes. But it comes with phases of depression caused by those mostly insignificant relentlessly disappointing moments that become a tidal wave of failure. Or at least the feeling of failure.

I have many strengths as an educator. But they are difficult to see when I constantly focus on those skills I can't seem to conquer. Instead of focusing on one to work on and improve, I try to do it all at once, never able to gain traction in any one area.

Add to that, those blindsiding moments life throws at you to spin your existence on its axis and redirects your life towards an new dimension you hadn't planned on. It seems to happen to me a lot. And I'm a planner. So these blindsiding moments aren't a little drop of rain in your eye. No, they are the semi the flattens you after you swear you looked both ways. Twice.

This year has been a doozy already.
In the span of 12 months, my husband was diagnosed as Bipolar Type II, my best friend and co-director has decided to retire from teaching, and today we learned that COVID19 would close the doors of my school for the remainder of the year.

How do I get through it? I don't have the answer, but I have hope. I go back to this anonymous poem I used in a 2018 blog post:

"It's risky," said experience.

"It's pointless," said reason.

"Give it a try," whispered the heart.

While I'm not throwing out my curriculum for the year, I did decide to throw it out this week in the interest of my students Social-Emotional state. Our principal likes to say, "Go slow to go fast" and "Fail forward." For the last 3 we offered "enrichment", but transitioned to "continuous learning" today. I decided to establish our format for learning (menus!) in my class by reviewing the biology of stress and ways to mitigate the negative effects of amygdala hijack.

My goal was easy, familiar, and lots of choice. So I went with a menu.

Here is a link to the menu I created. I used it for both my Freshmen and my Upper Classmen.

Students were able to engage with me to check in and make lists of go to brain breaks for whenever they are overwhelmed. And as part of their weekly attendance, rather than join a low stakes Group Zoom, they opted for personal emails to tell me about their last three weeks and ask about mine.

I love them. I miss them. I am sad.

But I am relentless.