12/27/2020: This year hasn't been easy for all of us. I'm definitely more fortunate than others to be walking away from 2020 with all my needs fulfilled. I still have a job, a home, a car, a family, a friend, and a life. I have lost a few family members and friends along the way, some to the coronavirus and others to unforeseen events, but they will continue to live on in our memories.
If I just look at the big picture of my life, then I am very blessed. I am very grateful for all that I currently have in my life. However, I am ready for a change- for once in my life. Although I'm always the first person to tell anyone who asks that I hate changes, I am finally ready for a change.
In all my years to date, I have always looked at the big picture of my life. When I painted my life, I sketched the expectations set forth by my family, my culture, my teachers, my friends, and my community. I then filled my canvas with different hues from every person I care deeply about. For the longest time, I believed I had succeeded in creating the most vibrant canvas for myself and nothing can wash away those colors in my life.
I was wrong.
When someone I care about decided to add another hue to my canvas, I allowed it without asking myself whether I needed it or not. Over time all those different hues saturated my canvas gray, and all those lines I worked so hard to sketch blurred into distorted shapes. It was only when I couldn't recognize my own canvas anymore did I realize I had been looking at my life from the wrong perspective the entire time. I was so busy trying to complete the big picture that I forgot to create the pieces. The pieces of myself.
This year hasn't been easy for me mentally and emotionally. In January the world I thought I knew tilted and I found myself scrambling to hold on. I tried so hard to understand and to forgive. I forced my emotions down because of the many people I care about. On the night of January 27, I was going to end it all for myself. All those blessings I had were suddenly chains I could not break away from. All the colors vanished from my world and I could only see darkness. I uploaded a post on instagram and archived it so there would be no questions about the intentions of my action. I left my home and drove around in the dark while I cried. I mourned for myself that night.
I was mentally lost. I was emotionally hurt. I was broken-hearted and devastated at the circumstances I was thrown into. I needed someone to be there for me that night, but I couldn't turn to a single person. The one person who I thought would understand me turned out to be the one who broke me. It was so unfair to me. I told myself all I had to do was turn my wheel and it would be a done deal. As I was about to do so, a voice inside my head said, "It's not fair to your students."
That one line saved my life that night.
I thought of how unfair it would be for my students if I just left like that without a goodbye. I thought of how unfair it would be for my colleagues to have to tell my students why I left. I thought of how unfair it would be for the person replacing me in the middle of the school year. I know how challenging it is to be a substitute teacher and how much more difficult it is to be a long-term substitute. I have experienced it all when I took over a class that lost their teacher to cancer, and even then it was difficult for all of us. As much love as I poured into each kid and lesson every day, it was never enough. I didn't want my own class to experience the same hardships as that group of students. It's not fair to them or to anyone else. My burden was mine to bear alone. So, I drove back home and returned to school the next day.
After that night, I have been taking each day as it comes. I would be lying if I say I walked away stronger mentally and emotionally. The truth is I am still broken and recovering from depression. I cry when I cannot handle my emotions. I try to take care of myself before a mental breakdown happens. This occurs in many different ways, and many of them include being selfish with my time. One of those ways is learning how to say 'no' to those I respect and care about. Another is learning how to love and respect myself.
Right now I have no confidence in how I look and who I am as a person. I am learning how to create the pieces of myself all over again one color at a time. Every time I feel I have made some progress on my canvas, another hue gets splashed on and I find myself right back where I started. It has been a very long and challenging year, but it has been exactly 11 months since that night and I am still here painting.
May 2021 bring good changes filled with love, growth, and the right hues.
