Moving Backwards Into Tomorrow?

It'll be one day shy of ten months since I have set foot in my classroom. It has been that long since I have scratched out lesson plans 20 minutes before acting them out, gabbed with kids about their teenage woes over lunch, jammed the copy machine, and woke up before 5AM.

It feels like a different world, another time, yet I will be back in full-swing early tomorrow morning. One of my most prominent fears of this whole thing is that all of my self-reflection and awareness of life that I have explored over the past months will be lost. I will step foot into my old life, moving backwards, losing all of my forward momentum. Is that possible? Can you really MOVE in any direction other than forward, facing the future with your present? I hope not.

I have come too far to go back to where I was. I am in such a precious place in between my cerebrum and this vast planet: somewhere, I reside in the combination of both. I enjoy what I have discovered about myself and how I fit in this world. I am far more wise about my actions and far more enlightened about my thoughts.

We will only wait and see what happens to me as I join back into living in the "real world". One can only tell. I am going to hold onto my strength of self and grip it with white knuckles, waving it around for all to see. I am going to keep small pieces of that same strength in my pocket, hoping to not confuse it with grocery lists, tardy notes, and fortune cookie wisdom.