2.46: Reflections on a Monday Morning

Today marks the start of the 2017 fall work semester for me. A year ago today I was half-burned out and uncertain about the work world I’d helped to create. Two weeks later I was done with all thoughts of professional leadership at that college. I’d discovered what that world was actually about and decided–openly–to shift focus back to becoming a better teacher. The results were mixed. I improved in some areas and drastically fell off in others. I lost all sense of community within the college and became a ghost of my social and often professional self.

For all intents and purposes, this is my New Year’s Day. Everything for the past few months has been summer break-styled downtime, trips to the beach, and mental preparation. This is the fall of my content. I am determined to reach the level teaching ability I ascribe to. Furthermore, I recognize that teaching at the college level is only one leg of my true work. I am a writer first. What I always am teaching is how students can recognize and thus tell their own story. Therefore it is important that I recognize and tell my own. I am dedicated to writing an original novel over the course of the school year. This is not, as with past dedications, a pie in the sky idea. This is tied to classwork, scheduling, and how I expect to lead my life moving forward.

One of the scariest truths of my life is that I now expect to die. I don’t know when it is going to happen. I hope I live well into my eighties. Still there are nights that I am shook awake by the concept that I will one day close my eyes forever. When that moment comes and I am faced with the idea of what life I lived, I don’t want that fleeting forever to be filled with regret. I want to die empty. I want to die knowing I poured everything I had into life. I want to feel like the ideas that fill my head are left to serve as my legacy to those I love and leave.

I don’t mean to be so morbid, but the fundamental truth of life is that we are given a moment to explore, to love, and to make things happen. The person we face in the end is the one we faced all along–our own worst critic–ourselves. I can trace back all of the failures in my life to one person: me. I was always athletic enough, and a good enough writer, and smart enough to accomplish anything I wanted to. Though bothered–even hampered at times–by racism, it never stopped me from being able to achieve whatever I wanted. The only obstacle I’ve ever faced in my life is my inability to follow through. I cannot expect to defeat it all at once, but I can sure as hell give it all I have this semester.