July 1st

Today is the day. Today is the day I take my first step into unknown territory. I've always done the safe thing. The "right" thing. The sure thing. And today I embark on the unthinkable. Something I've been "thinking" about for months. Something I've asked God a million times over, what should I do? What about...? What if...? Don't let me do the "wrong" thing here, please God.

Ten years ago today I was doing my student teaching and planning my upcoming wedding. My life was just beginning. Everything was new and unknown and exciting. Today is different and yet the same. I am planning the beginning of a whole new life. I feel like I'm on this wobbly little bridge with some sort of blurry fog just a few yards ahead. I don't know what's through that fog. It smells like fresh rain, it has the draw of something beautiful, a huge oasis waiting on the other side. But the truth is I don't know what is over there. It could be a plain old street lined with straight sidewalks and just a few new friends. It could be a rocky road that I struggle to maneuver my way through. It could be clear path, lined with fields of flowers and lemonade stands, beautiful homes of friends new and old, all lined down this peaceful but new path that I am beginning to travel along and settle myself in.

The truth is I don't know what lies ahead. Ten years ago I was excited, nervous, and apprehensively enamored by the prospects of both married life and a career as a teacher. I really had no idea where life would take me. Today I am humbled by the gifts that I have been given...ten years of teaching in which I learned, grew, and experienced both the joys and terrible heartache of knowing I could do something and yet not enough for these little souls in my care 25 hours a week. The experience of participating in a Sacramental marriage, where there are two strong willed people and an ever stronger anchor of love, consecrated vows, and grace that somehow manages to cover our short comings and make our love stronger and more exciting day by day. Humbled by the knowledge that ten years ago I had no idea the capacity I had to love, and humbled by the knowledge that during the next ten years that love will grow even stronger. Humbled by the fact that my dreams of having children came true three times over in three little souls that are larger than life, bigger than their little britches, and simultaneously hold ownership over my whole heart.

Ten years of living, growing, and experiencing. Now I embark on a new journey. A new journey in which I say, I know what it's like not to live. To be in so much pain that I can not think, or love, or read my children a story. To be in my role as a teacher and look at my students knowing the pain is too much to bear and I must leave them when all I want to do is teach them some math. I know that life is precious. I know that in those moments, those days, those weeks on end, nobody was getting what I could give. Not my marriage, not my motherhood, not my teaching. None of it was top notch. All of it was getting through just to feel inadequate and start all over. That experience this year taught me something: you have to say no Jenny. You have to choose. You are no longer able to keep the pace that you once were. You have won the race. You have fought the good fight. If you are to win the prize you must choose. You must choose a path. All roads can not be traveled at once. Choose life.

So it's goodbye to full-time teaching for me. Teaching is a part of my identity. It's something I love and something I will always BE. Right now raising my kids and being present during more hours is just more important. More important than the benefits that life brings. In working around each other's schedules we have grown accustomed to living separate lives, doing the deeper and daily conversations over text. Experiencing life with our children separately. Working our hours at our respective jobs only to come home and be the only one parenting while the other is at work. It's just not working anymore. It's no longer worth it to retain the benefits both financially and personally that come with my teaching career. It is time to take a step out on that wobbly rickety bridge knowing a little more than I did ten years ago; life is NEVER what you think it will be, God's grace IS big enough to cover my inequities, and LIFE is meant to be LIVED.