How are you feeling?
This is the question my closest friends and family members are asking. The question that seems simple enough to answer. The question that should have an easy answer, right?
Wrong.
A little background about me.
- I play it safe.
- I don’t like risk.
- The unknown scares the crap out of me.
- I am a closet competitor.
- I fear success.
Then again I guess it comes as no surprise that I have been living in a state of the unknown for months. There’s no way you can go through what I’ve been through without coming out a little bruised, beaten, and ultimately changed. I know I have changed. I know that I am not the same person I was 9 months ago before cancer crept in and ripped the blanket security out from under me.
I no longer have the secure sense that tomorrow is guaranteed. I don’t have the ignorance of youth. And I certainly don’t have the normal sense of worry. My priorities have shifted. My understanding of time is altered.
The blanket is gone and I am left with my two feet ready to run.
You see- I don’t view the decision I made as a choice. I view it as a calling. In fact, a fellow coach posted my speech on YouTube, and for the last 3 days I’ve watched it more than once or twice; I have been thinking about how the person in the video; this confident, happy, survivor didn’t exist 9 months ago. I was kind of taken aback by my confidence- by my words. I know it was me speaking, but it wasn’t my brain controlling the words, it was my heart.
If you watch the speech, you will understand why this was not easy. I love the chaos and creativity of my seventh grade class. I love my colleagues. I love the passion I feel when I am loving what I teach. But again, I repeat, that blanket is gone.
I can’t play it safe- not because I was unhappy as a teacher. I could be content in the classroom for the next twenty years. It’s because I simply don’t belong there.
My calling is larger. My calling is to inspire people. My calling is to help people.
When I walked into the building yesterday, I cried. I think the tears came because I know that I don’t fit there anymore. When you close a chapter in your life, you open a new one, right? But closing this one is hard. I think the circumstances of life have led me here. They have pointed me in the direction I am supposed to walk towards, and I don’t believe I would have ever left had I NOT gone through what I’ve been through.
And you know what’s kinda crazy? When I stood on that stage I had NO idea I would mention leaving the classroom. It wasn’t rehearsed. But as I stood there, the words flowed from me: naturally, confidently. Looking back- those words were spoken through me because it was right. It was time. I didn’t have blanket. Time to run.
There’s a certain amount of faith and trust that I have given to God. I believe my purpose is bigger.
Thank you Stacey for that one word. Thank you Mike for believing this is right. Thank you mom and dad for encouraging me to follow this dream. Thank you Beachbody for giving me the platform. Thank you Nicky for telling your buddies that mommy’s job is to, “help people.”
XOXO,
