Things aren’t always directly served at once to fully grasp.
A lifetime. A promising journey.
Life. Time. When broken apart, neither guarantees any promises of even tomorrow.
Time allows one to process what to make of what is before them. Life is what you make of time given.
Turning on the light switch provides all of a sudden, light. However, there is time needed to process as which direction to go, most especially in places where surroundings are new or unfamiliar.
Instant cocoa, coffee, or, lemonade, cannot just be immediately imbibed without first tasting to our liking. We add little by little in hopes of not having put in too much.
Some things cannot be reversed. Life. Time. Two of which many to this day still try and take back.
Our direction, our moments, we process to make right, no matter if something were immediate or some time to take place.
We must make meaning of what is before us. Otherwise, we go about life to follow or go without a comprehensive direction- without a plan.
I remember the moment like yesterday.
It was back when I received my opportunity to teach at the school I am currently in now.
There was only one general education position open and by the grace of God, I was offered the position.
I had always wanted to teach at this school as back then, it was that school to be in within our district.
A dual subject, teaching language arts and social studies at different times but with the same students for two years, was what was offered to me and I couldn’t have been more grateful to have received the opportunity.
Here’s the transparency of truth- I had already envisioned myself in this school to a point where I felt and saw myself as already being part of the team.
Like the life I had already started with my husband, I had been ready.
Life. Time. I saw myself within the life even before the time.
I didn’t just stop there.
During that first year, with one starting high school, another one with me in middle school and yet another trailing behind in elementary, I thought only great strength and many victories as I simultaneously envisioned both beautifully coinciding under my given role as a parent and a teacher.
As long as there is structure and order, moments where processing time suggests to be lacking will be met with a familiar path to follow.
Faith toward blessed glory would be all there is needed to create successive moments, no matter the weather to create uncertainty.
With our last two, now, one in middle school with me and another just a year more to join us, envisioning the end game has continued nonetheless.
I had envisioned pure joy and glory with my husband, my friend, my partner before our first even arrived in our arms.
Back during, what I call our first phase in parenting our first three, not everything was clear as to how time would need to be spent within our life together, however.
All my husband and I knew was to enjoy the journey of giving our children the direct guidance, leadership, and help we had to give ourselves.
We read together, talked together, and planned together what we would see for our children. We even, of course, disagreed with one another when being and thinking like one just didn’t always work.
You think, plan, do, and then, expect results of what you already envisioned ahead.
I had yet to understand that expanding your horizon with other minds would only create more choice and options for those around aside from the planned focus.
Not all minds plan and see ahead. Not all minds are certain of anything.
As a teacher and parent, the seed you plant may well be choked up by thorn bushes or blown away by the wind.
Having taught all four main subjects in middle school now- math, science, language arts, and social studies, I would like to think I have picked up understanding of how each can be designed, structured, and delivered. Still, the moods of students coming in can be great work to how they will be leaving the room each day.
Parenting your own, with your heart, mind, body, and spirit, deeply dedicated to the children you have each talked to before you even pushed them out into this world, is even so much more challenging and complex.
You not only till the ground but when gloves can’t be found, you bleed from endless splinters and thorns you get on the ground to pull out just to create good soil for each seed.
You know the life you want for children- much better as your own.
Life. Time. While you may embrace at times uncertainty for yourself, you quietly agonize while working to prevent any wrong directions for those around.
Triggers of your own past come at you with great force, to be silenced before your children who just want to go about the world free and fearless.
You tell yourself they should and yet a voice continues to speak to you, “But, what if?”
And, then, like a soldier who must not release full disclosure of the possible encounters ahead, you must be stern and rigid at times, no longer being that fun parent who just watches them run around, carefree of the world.
As each child grows, the maturity must be moulded into readiness for not just joy but inevitable pain.
You vow to yourself that under your care your children will be safe. Hence, you are now the guard and not just the guardian.
And, yet, your children, embracing autonomy of the heart, mind, body, and spirit (as they fearlessly should) agitate and tease your silent triggers.
Each moment of their joy, you are beyond joyful to hear and see them as so. And, yet, you quietly battle the voices in you, reminding you that at any given moment, you cannot leave to chance that peace and harmony will remain.
You remember. And, thus, your children know.
You tell yourself, however, your past is not their future. Let them be.
Relax. Breathe. Let go.
Teach them the fearlessness you have worked to regain. So far, they have skipped your own pains. You have done well.
Embrace innocent madness for thankfully, they know not the kind that takes innocence away.
In this next phase with our two youngest, I was just in the car today thinking, “Boy! Do they just want to keep talking to us and have a lot to say!”
With my husband, after over thirty years of comfort in our still growing friendship, it can be a challenge to have a conversation in the car without interruption.
That not wanting to discourage your children from communicating with you to just finishing a thought or hearing a full conversation without losing where you were in the conversation is just one barrier of not always knowing which position to take.
My, “Please don’t interrupt”, no matter how nerve-wrecking, is a good sign that our children are doing just fine being children while pushing through toward greater growth and development as they seek for answers.
Our final student led conferences just came to a finish and what I found myself doing again as in the past was providing words of comfort to parents who express pure guilt and embarrassment (actual words of parents) as to the academic performance of their children.
I remind them that it’s not their fault. While a child with no regard for learning, disrespecting and rudely denying opportunities for improvement is one addressed as great concern with a must to accountably reform now, on the other hand, when the foundation of raising respectful, loving, and kind children has been evidently met, that biggest part has already been done.
When a child chooses not to do because, as students reason, they don’t understand, the ultimate thought to shed light on such mindset is, “How will you understand if you first don’t try to do?”
And, still, part of growing up is having the power of choice. There is a defense mechanism in all of us.
We all want to be winners. No one wakes up and says, “I can’t wait to lose today!” as I’ve reminded my own students. When one wants or desires to win, they must plan to take action.
Seeing my own children thriving while still dissatisfied with bars they’ve reached, such competitiveness is within each, just at different levels.
Why should there be anything wrong with asking yourself, “What next?”
You can mould personality and character by offering surroundings of choice to be but ultimately, personality and character is like cars on the lot; what one decides to take off with is self-driven.
At the beginning of the year, I can guarantee that when students write their goal for the year, most always I get the majority to suggest to get good grades or straight As followed by making new friends.
Give it a month, free will kicks in and those goals take a turn of their own where one can only serve as a reminder of what their goal had been.
Whether in a classroom or in a home, to care for the young mind always involves taking each to the water. How many choose to drink is that follow-up saying suggesting you just can’t make them.
Free will rebels to a point where exhaustion perseveres along with hope and belief.
And, yet, I journey to this point now in life where I embrace the child, without each even knowing just how much fire I am grateful to see in them.
I have my beloved John-John’s markings (report card) back when he was around this age at school to humble my stance as a mother and teacher.
Funny. I see Mama’s writing just as if it were any parent feeling guilt or shame today, explaining how they keep trying but with no results.
Let me tell you about my brother, John-John. While he evidently struggled in school, I watched him create a beautiful card for Papa and Mama by merely carving out velvet paper he found around our grandmother’s house, creating an indescribable montage of priceless artwork on the cover before presenting the card to my parents.
His diary that I hold still, while I respectfully do not read the contents of, just with a glimpse of his writing tells me he thought deeply of life and its wonders, allowing me understanding that he and I shared the same love for writing and poetry.
Of our three brothers, he was the athletic, passionate about his own health and physique even at the age of eighteen, before he found his fate during a car accident.
He played the guitar. He loved to dance and sing. And, boy! Did he love to laugh!
This was my brother, John-John.
And, so, when I look at my own children or my students and call out their wrongs, redirecting them with all my might to stay in the right, it is not that I ask pure control of the situation or to try and prove that I am in control.
Simply? Because like my husband and I have done for over thirty years with our own, we have made it our job, our role to guide, guard, help, and care for those who may just not fully see where they are heading yet.
Life. Time. Neither promises tomorrow. We have to give all today.
Is every moment easy?
The more connecting question to me is, Is every moment hard?
Thankfully, no. There is so much victory when planning and structure is evident. Even amongst the storm, you get better at how to prepare to overcome such.
John-John lacked guidance and help. This, I know. So, when I look at my own children and my students, do I see John-John as one of them?
Not only do I see, I feel him. Along with my sister of just three days and my Papa who left also too early, I guard as a guardian.
This, our own overcome traumas have inadvertently created strength and resilience in both my husband and I to plan and direct while making certain to also protect.
The moment our children first started to walk was the first sign we would have to watch their steps.
The moment our children first started talking was the next sign we would need to be aware of what they were seeing or listening to.
That early and even from there on, no matter how perfectly you think to have planned that darn pretty picnic, that unpredictable weather reminds us all that we can only control so much.
When you put children first before you, you eventually have to trust that they will want to walk further and further away, autonomy to prove a strong foundation you have built.
Carrying them will not be teaching them to walk alone; speaking for them will not teach them to speak for themselves.
When and if they should go, how much work you put in to helping them build a sustainable engine is all you can have faith on.
Maintenance is on the child now grown.
