Taking a step back

I have so many things to say that I don't know where to begin. I've written extensively about teaching and being in the city and starting this new life, and I want to step back for a moment and ruminate about what's going on while all this is happening. It's an intriguing experience for me. I'm growing up very quickly as I develop my understanding of what it means to take responsibility for scores of students. I give the performance of being an actual adult every time I step inside the classroom, and I'm finding that if you pretend for long enough you start to believe it. I've received kudos from classmates on my "teacher stare"--the look you give when students need to stop whatever it is they're doing and start doing something constructive. I'm learning about patience and thoughtfulness and leadership. All these things are happening while I'm scrambling between trains and classrooms and happy hours and classwork and barbecues and homework. What is it that John Lennon said? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," right? It's like that.

So there's been heaps of growing up since I moved to New York, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place and why I wanted to do it here. The other interesting aspect of doing it this way is that I'm away from home for the first time in my life, and I'm surrounded by people my age who are kind of like me, and we're all surrounded by this behemoth city of endless diversions. It is in this regard, as opposed to the teaching, where I imagine growing up will hit me the hardest. Teaching feels like a natural extension of my character, and while it has been difficult adjusting into that role, I still feel a harmonic balance to it all. Being on my own in the big city isn't always so harmonious.

It's hard to shake the notion that you're constantly "missing out" on things. There's so many people and so much going on in this city that no matter what you're doing it's all-too-fathomable that you could be doing something more interesting, more sociable, more . . . New York. I find myself flipping between periods of restlessness and the compulsion to be around other people, to match this city measure for measure, and periods of wanting to bring the small town to the big city. I'm just as content to share a slice of pie and a good conversation as I am to traverse the eclectic social scenes of the Village or Soho or Williamsburg. I like the small town part of me; I think it makes me more equipped to handle a place like this. I think of it as the Chicagoan in me that carries a small town mentality within the massive metropolis. The important things are to be yourself, to do what makes you happy, and to surround yourself by people who enable those things to happen.

Still, it's hard to find a balance. I felt so settled in Skokie and Evanston. I had the comforts of close friends and a supportive family. I surrounded myself with familiarity. Despite taking this major leap and trekking off on my own to a new place seemingly at the drop of a dime, I find I'm hesitant to fully put myself out there. Part of me feels nervous about coming off as boring or bizarre, but I'm usually more than capable of dispelling those nagging worries. More than anything else, I feel like I'm a novice to making it on my own, and I know I'll have to make heaps and heaps of mistakes en route to discovering new sides of myself and connecting to other people. It's difficult to reconcile how much I've already learned and experienced with how much growing up I still have yet to do. I'm absolutely terrified of all the awkward moments, the embarrassments, the heartbreaks, and the silly mistakes that lie ahead for me. I'm also excited about all the epiphanies and triumphs and moments of beauty that I hope will fall in between.

This whole experience has been awesome. The more I teach, the more I find myself endeared to these students and the more excited I become about having my own classes come fall. Being in a new place and doing something new, I find myself supremely confident and simultaneously scared shitless. The overachiever in me is taking hold in the presence of all this newness and in the absence of those sources of comfort that left me content. Going with that train of thought, I miss people, a lot. It was hard not to be in Las Vegas with Holly and the rest of my family as she celebrated her birthday. It's hard not having a good grasp of how things are going in my mom's new life as a social worker. It was very hard not being there for my dad while he was in surgery for his back. It's hard not being able to bridge the distance between so many close friends. I guess that's my life here--a little bit of everything. I realize how fortunate I am to be doing what I'm doing as well as how lucky I was for everything I had back home. Living here draws a barrage of experiences, emotions, and sensations that fly through my everyday. But I can handle it. I'm doing ok. I'm growing up.