I looked up and had not written anything on this blog in a year. It's still here. I'm still here, writing, living, and learning. This past year has been filled with many emotions. I can hear my therapist saying, 'put a name to it. How are you feeling?’
September 2021
Like a sister, one of my dearest friends got married this month. I have been part of many weddings. I could have been cast as the Black twenty-seven dresses. I used to say that with a tinge of embarrassment, but now I consider it rewarding that friends love you so much to want you to be part of their special day. That same week a former student passed away due to gun violence, and on that day, I was an attendee at another friend's wedding trying to smile. Unfortunately, gun violence did not stop there. My school community lost multiple children. We closed our building down for two days. Although our school year was just beginning, I was already spent. The weight that educators carry is a heavy one. Philly Inquirer posted an article, "Philly teachers and administrators are end-of-year exhausted, and school has only just begun." That article could have been one of the many faces I saw in my school building daily. I tried to find things to do to recharge; instead, I told multiple people I was retiring. I would giggle about it, but my coworker and friend knew from the look in my eyes and our 4-minute hall monitor conversations that I was unsure if I would last.
October 2021
I can now scream to the world how much I hate standardized testing…wait, I did that while doing the job. Have you ever tried to round a hundred and something kids up for an SAT test after being out of school for eighteen months? I should actually add a magician to my resume. As a reward, because I believe in rewards and lots of them, I went to John Legend with my friends at The Met. I think I want to do set design for a concert tour at some stage in my life. I also want to note that though I was depressed and anxious every morning, my skin was modelesque. The detailed skin routine I adopted during the pandemic showed outward joy even if I cried during my therapy session in an office nobody used at work that day. Insecure season five is back on, which helped me fight the Sunday Scaries. Another article comparing teaching during the pandemic to a steward on the titanic returned me to my Scaries.
November 2021
"Do you know how many alarms I set to get here on time? I'm going through it too." So I say to a student who has stayed up playing the game. Somehow I have become the enemy because we are in a school building, and I am a teacher giving him schoolwork. You win some, you lose some. Adele dropped her album in November because I needed something to cry to. That is my story, and I'm sticking to it. I played it multiple times on my drive back to my home state of Michigan, where I met new cousins, laughed with old cousins, and picked up Koegel Vienna hot dogs and Vargas taco bread. I mourned the closing of Rib Shack. Poured a red Faygo pop out in memory of those ribs. I stood in the middle of the street while the snow fell with my palm open, trying to tap into a childhood feel-good memory. I pass my granny's old house but never yet to the grave where her earthly body was laid. I sat in the parking lot of my last job in Michigan, the factory. I was reminded that I had always had the boldness to pick up and start over, just like I did when I left that job working on the assembly line in the past with dreams of being a writer.
December 2021
The kids are restless. Not my birth kids but my students. We spend enough time together to be called a family, though, and I'm restless along with them. I cooked quite a bit this month based on my Instagram stories, delicious meals, beautiful. I was a little rusty but cleared a twenty-four-inch box jump at the gym. Just in case the apocalypse comes, and I have to jump a fence, I know I'm good.
January 2022
Walked back into the school building after winter break, and it had lost a bit of people weight. I tried to stay in the gym, therapy, and chiropractor so my mental health would not shift into something unrecognizable. A friend had a real book drop with a real publisher and a real cover. I was so inspired. I thought about all the times I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Rittenhouse square and imagined my book in the fiction section. I would sign a copy, "May this story stay with you like our favorite stories do," and then I hear a bell ring. I am transported back into the real world. A school meeting that could have been an email. After the meeting, I drive home. My world is blown up as I am rear-ended and left with a tad bit more life trauma than I woke up with, but I am alive. All things fixable
February 2022
As a high school teacher, I had many talks about sustainability in this profession. I'm getting back to my dreams this month. Group chats helped me get through. One of my students told me they googled me last week and that I was "like… famous." I will now call this portion of my life "Already Famous." I dyed my hair so I would feel like more of a rock star and look like an already famous person.
March 2022
Tis' the season of midyears, but not mine though. It was my time to part ways. Terrified, I was but also relieved. Sad, I was but also excited for what would come next. Do I have a clue what is next? At this very moment, she did not. My student said, "they didn't see me as the type to hurry in falling in love, so maybe I should start working towards that so they can come to my wedding." This next season may bring that to me. I dropped a barbell on my chest in the gym. A strapping young gentleman helped lift the bar off my chest so I could live to see another day. Was he the love of my life? I will never know because I hid from him the rest of the month every time I stepped into the weight room. I will not hide from love anymore. I sang lots in the hallways this month. I had a joy about the next, even though I was unsure what that was.
April 2022
I was at an 86-day countdown. Maybe I should tell my job, "jk jk." Toni Morrison wrote her first novel at thirty-nine. This is a non-random fact I keep putting in the forefront of my mind just in case I get unwanted advice on my life choices. I had prayed, I had talked to my therapist, and I had sought wise counsel. I spent a weekend in Atlanta, where I encouraged my friend to leave her job, not because I was crazy but because we only lived once. I want people to remember that I lived. Maybe I am a little crazy, a lot of a dreamer, very much a believer, and doing the doer work.
May 2022
A child was playing a VR game in my class today. I have little left in me, so this is where we are. My hall monitor work friend, who has helped me manage anxiety in our day's 4-minute talks, is leaving. Who will I run to for four-minute pep talks? I wore heels to a wedding this month. That decision alone is saying I don't care about my life. I'm not made for heels anymore. When was I ever? For teacher appreciation, a student said I was annoying. In the same sentence, they said, "they feel like I care about everybody's futures." I do. That's the hard part about switching lanes. They also added, "Don't give up on us, purrr," and I won't. I told my classes they would not see me in the building the next school year. At Prom, they played My Dougie. The students were doing a dance I had never seen before on this side of heaven. Everything changes in this life.
June 2022
I cried in my car a few times this month, then treated myself to dinner because rewards are my thing, of course. Beach days, the arrival of my friend's book, and the anniversary of when I packed everything in my Pontiac Sunfire and drove through the mountains and rain in search of my dream. One of my students said I didn't know this was your last year. Another said she has been talking about it for a while. Another states that they better see my name on a book or film or see me in it. I have a lot of work to do. These kids are not about to dog me out.
July 2022
I'm putting on a one-woman show. At least, that's what I have told myself and everyone else around me. The keys have been returned, and the desk packed up, but on the streets of Philly, I hear, "Hey, Ms. Henry!" Once a teacher, always a teacher. I'm obsessed with the Pimento cheese dip from Trader Joe's. It's like my top summer snack. I got a new tattoo, and I could see my granny shaking her head at me. Sometimes I play "Everything is Everything" by Lauryn Hill in my car. I remix the "You can't match this rapper slash actress" line to Writer slash actress because you know whatever you have to say to pump yourself up, you have gotta say it. You gotta believe it before the world does.
August 2022
The month of my birth. This month I began advertising "Hello, How Are You?". The month that hoteping on Chestnut street is at an all-time high. I spent my time gifting myself, a step up from rewarding. I collected the September issues because one day, I would like to see my name on one of these articles. This is the season of thriving. Again, I don't know how it will happen, but it will.
September 2022
I worked on some jokes while I rode a boat around the Panama canal. Anything to not think about that I still, at my big age, did not know how to swim. A lover of the water who can't swim…yet. I'm going to work on that. I have been a production Assistant a few times over the past few months. Anything to get me in the room. In the rooms I have been in the past few months, I had no clue I would even be here, but this is what walking in faith looks like. Before I knew it, it was the weekend of my show. I was so nervous. Would they point and laugh at me, or would the people actually laugh? I got genuine laughs! The kind you people pay to park for. The flowers, the love, my hands, and my heart could not hold them all. This is what I am supposed to be doing.
October 2022
Nobody ever talks about the moment after the high of life. Like what's next. Well, a trip to Seattle where I had the craziest moment of clarity. A moment of confirmation, you could say. This season will be hard but keep doing the work. I told my friend that I'm somewhat of a popular loner currently. I work through the sadness that seems to seasonally show its ugly head. I spend my days trying to pump myself up to keep on working, and keep on pushing because this is a faith walk. Not faith lay in my bed and avoiding human interaction. I beat myself up a bit because did I think this through enough? We here now.
November 2022
Today I wrote a detailed list of all the events since I decided to follow my plan A, and I must say, girl, you betta gon head. Stay tuned for an updated glory reel because I have no choice but to follow what I set out to do.