My fingers might be frozen, but I am not dead!

A bit drastic of a title I suppose, but this has been where I have sat mentally since my last blog post one month ago. I am not sure that this blog has ever been so quiet for such a long period of time. I usally purge my thoughts that keep me awake at night several times a week on this blog to help me not lose my sanity and to navigate life and my lifelong learning to become the best educator, parent, husband, coach, and friend I can be.

But lately, I have not been able to type any words. Every single time I attempted to do so I instantly got out of my chair and

• cleaned(Aaron version, not Amanda version which are two very different things)
• wandered aimlessly in the house
• worked on other projects
• doubted my thoughts
• drank more coffee to help jumpstart the flow of ideas
• ate lots of food

We all hit walls in our lives. This is the time of year when everyone starts to feel “it”. This “it” is not the clown from the book by Stephen King, but often can be just as scary as “it” looms around every corner of our thinking and lives. This “it” is hard to define because while we all feel the presence of “it”, we cannot put our finger on what “it” is. What happens is that our stress levels rise, we feel overhwhelmed, and we grow impatient. Additionally, the weather tends to fluctuate just like our emotions and we lose sight of the end of the tunnel of another successful school year.

While  I am no longer in the classroom, I still feel the very same feelings I felt as an educator in my role supporting them. While nature is trying to figure itself out and prepare for a new season of renewal and growth(snow in April?), we as people are doing the same. We are attempting to shed the layers we have wrapped ourselves in all school year and this is hard. We go back and forth and just cannot break free. This is when we expose ourselves more and more. This is when change happens as people announce leaving for new jobs, shifts in positions, a soon to be new schedule of summer, and trying to wrap up this year while preparing for the new goals we all know are coming for next year.

It is hard.

For me, while I don’t have the worry of wondering what classroom I am being moved to or should I apply for this teaching job or that one or stay the same, I still have the same feelings. I am preparing for the decisions that will help me lead a better life.

I read this post from Jon Acuff and it really resonated with the crossroads I am sitting at currently.

And add this thought nugget from Mel Robbins

I think it is good for us to pause every once in a while. Step back from it all. Recenter our mental well being.

And breathe………

Take a breath and recalibrate. And this is what I have been trying to do. It has taken me a month to work through the anxiety and stress, but the breakthrough has happened. It is good. I feel like I am turning over a new leaf.

While I was not writing on the blog it was not as if I was not working. I did a ton of work with

• Maker PD workshops with amazing educators
• Coordinating all the needs of schools and educators in my AEA job
• Mapping out what is most important for work, family, and time with those that matter
• Received another book rejection letter
• Developed several new self paced learning playlists for students and teachers around Makey Makey, Python Coding, Micro:bit, and more
• Increasing the capacity of my YouTube channel

As we move into Spring I think it is good for us to realize that we need to shed the layers we have wrapped around ourselves. We don’t need them all. We may have needed them earlier in our life, but we can let go. It is like our flowers we will soon be planting in our gardens. We must prune the old away to allow new growth to happen.

I have been working to sharpen my blades to prune the old. To cut off the parts that are sucking away energy and not leading to the blossoms I had hoped. However, I will be adding new nutrients, water, and sunshine to my atmosphere to allow new growth to take place.

I guess this post is to suggest that I am back. I am alive. I am returning to the blog. I have big announcements, new projects, and a refocused energy on what matters and while it has taken me much longer than it should have to move the fuzziness from my vision, I know what needs to be done and looking forward to the new season of growth.

Change is hard. Change is scary. Sometimes we can control the circumstances. Sometimes we can’t. What we can do is focus on our actions. We can always control our actions and how we respond. I am finally reaching a place where I am not just saying those words, but working to live by them. For too long now I have been working to make others happy instead of myself. Like an old Stretch Armstrong doll, you can only pull so far and stretch so thin before you snap. I don’t want to snap so I am working to bring it back together.

via GIPHY

And more importantly, if you feel the same please know you are not alone in the journey. Stay strong my friend, take a step back, breathe in, and recalibrate your center and what matters most.