You are Your Best Creation
This was it. With nervousness and excitement, I took it in. I finally had my own classroom.
This moment was years in the making.
It had been over a decade since I’d left Willamette University with my self-esteem in the gutter. I’d been homeless twice. Married and divorced. Moved thirteen times. Got a Master’s degree. Took a couple of breaks from drinking and smoking pot, but always went back to it.
But now, I had moved back to Portland and was getting “back on track” with what felt like a real career, giving back, making a difference.
I was ready to give my middle school math classroom some personality and life.
Over the first couple of months, I created posters by hand. Bespoke, if you will.
My favorite had a cutout of Lionel Richie’s face from an old record album cover and the text “Lionel Richie Says” (a pun on Say You, Say Me which yes, I knew no one else would get but me!). I started adding math rules to it as I noticed students needing reminders.
As a first year teacher, I was assigned a supervisor —Susie. It turns out that Susie did not approve of what I considered a “grungey Portland coffeshop” aesthetic in my classroom.
Everything in there I’d scraped together from free piles and garage sales with a healthy dash of DIY creativity since the only classroom supply I’d started with was a 4 ft. tall stack of styrofoam meat trays (Meat trays?? Why were they there???) and I was barely making ends meet on a first year teacher’s salary.
With pursed lips, Susie instructed me to take a look at the classroom of another first year math teacher for an example of what my room should look like.
As I peeked in the door of this “model” classroom, I took in the neat rows of store-bought, generic math posters and I felt myself shrink inside. No jaunty angles, no handwritten signs. No sign of personality.
With each step back to my room, my feet felt heavier and heavier.
With each step, I took in the message that my personality wasn’t welcome here.
With each step, I realized that if I wanted to fit in– and I did— I’d better learn to fit in the way they wanted me to, because it wasn’t going to happen by me being my actual true self.
For the rest of the year, all I had to do was spot Susie’s face at the end of the hall, and I’d burst into tears.
The road to this classroom of my own had taken years of persistence and courage, and now I saw an entirely new set of challenges before me. Not only was I hiding my illegal drug use, but now I needed to conform myself to align myself with these standards that didn’t feel like me.
That experience was over fifteen years ago.
I’m now five years sober, long out of the classroom, and I’m finally finding the way to my true self.
( P.S. My sense of aesthetics has evolved, but I’m still not a fan of mass produced products. Not sorry!)
It turns out that my soul calling is to be a guide for other women finding their true selves in sobriety as well.
I’ve done my own deep work and training in spirituality, personal money management, finding and trusting my voice, emotional intelligence, body acceptance, peace with food, nature connection, the vastness of relational intelligence, and learning to stand in my value.
Not to say I’m anywhere near complete with any of this. All of this work and more is in process, and always will be.
What about you?
What role have you been playing that feels like you’re wearing a mask, shoes 10 sizes too big or too small?
Who or what has activated a part of you that feels like you’re doing it wrong, and should look/act/be like everyone else?
What is the whisper of intuition saying to you? Or has it become a roar?
The good news I have for you, my dear one, is that sobriety IS the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s challenging and sweet and rewarding and so worth it. My greatest wish for you is to find clarity as you make your way back home to your true self. You aren’t a mass production. You are a beautiful, unique human, and we need you exactly as you are.
In the words of Lionel Richie:
Time to start believing,
Believe in who you are
You are a shining star