a happy place

It's been a while since I've taken the time to really reflect on my experiences this past year. Until now I have avoided unpacking my failures and successes from teaching and living in this city. A compound of reasons kept me from evaluating the past year, the main culprit being my inability to appropriately articulate my thoughts and feelings. I feared that a case study of my first year teaching in New York would lead me into one of my bad bouts of "being too hard on myself."

So...I said to myself, "Self, maybe I should just bypass it all and enjoy my summer. After all, there's no place as diverting as NYC in the summer time." But, I couldn't escape the need to process it all.

Last Sunday I went to a place that served as my sanctuary when I first moved to the city. I sat down for a couple hours and wrote my heart out. I ran through every emotion in the book; I frowned, I smiled, I cried and I laughed. I let go of the thoughts, feelings, and failures that thwarted my celebration of surviving here; I have never felt so light.

Living out of range for reasonably priced plane tickets to my family and my closest friends has proven to be my greatest challenge. Now I realize the further I am from my loved ones the more I need to take time for myself.

I'm looking forward to fully enjoying my summer vacation. Believe it or not, I'm actually excited to plan and improve my next year as a teacher. I am at a mentally, physically, and emotionally happy place. Yay