The Turbulent Summer of 2024

The summer of 2024 was tough. I felt like my time as a professor had come to an end. The program I helped build was handed off to new leadership and I was starting (or re-starting) a career as a K-12 science teacher. I contemplated retirement, but the numbers did not add up. So I took the dive back into education, and I am so glad I did. The journals (and excerpts from journals) below trace the days of my turbulent summer and give you glimpse of the struggles I had. I originally hand-wrote them, so I picked out a few of the entries I could read and those I felt like the reader could relate to. I may write something similar about my summer of 2026 as I retire from Texas, become a Louisiana resident, and transition back into academia in the fall of 2026.

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June 8, 2024

How do you know when you have done your job at a place and it is time to move on? It sounds simplistic, but you just know.

Doors close and don’t reopen.

Connections break that cannot be unbroken.

You feel the job you came there to do has not necessarily been completed, but you have done all that is in your power to do.

Is it easy? Absolutely not!

But it is necessary and sometimes it is best to rip the band-aid off than to watch it fester and grow stagnant out of your view.

Some broken things are not fixable, and even if a feeble attempt is made, you will never look at them the same again. That broken coffee cup may be glued back together, but you always see the crack and remember when it was dropped. Yes, it still holds coffee, but it is not the same cup. Neither are you the same

Yet through the pain, there is solace in knowing an end date to your time. Knowing when that burden is lifted and new work begins.

Did you do all that you could have done? There is no answer to that question, but you at least acknowledge that you “fought the good fight.”

Close the door, do not look back, and gently walk into your future.

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Excerpt from June 9, 2024

…Nothing can change the impression some have had on me. Nor would I want to forget those friends and memories I have made.

We are always better for having others’ impressions on us, and we leave our share of marks on their souls…

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Excerpt from June 13, 2024

I like the space before – the time before you start a new venture.

At that time there are limitless possibilities in our forward view.

…Right now I am neither a success nor a failure. I am in that glorious limbo of basking in hopefulness. It is the calm before the storm. Just before sunrise.

But I know I cannot stay there – time pushes me to act. To pull the trigger. To execute the plan.

That is when the true purpose is fulfilled and the clock starts ticking again. The future begins now.

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June 28, 2024

Do we really long for transformation, or do we just pay it lip service?

I have read all the biographies, and I see their metamorphoses, but do I just think – “good for them!”?

Do I really believe that I can change into something I am not? It would be so easy to stay in the chrysalis with warmth and an abundant food supply and never change into the butterfly.

But the larva has no choice but to change or it will die – stasis is not an option.

So the question arises – what will I change into? It know it takes time, and when I emerge it will be awkward. I must grow into my wings; inhabit them before I can fly.

There is more self-doubt to come – but I must push through it.

To stay the same means certain death.

I am ready to fly.

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Excerpt from July 24, 2024 (Note the foreshadowing)

…I can’t help but feel like the past 11 years have been a fever dream.

I presented in England, Portland, and a number of different cities through ASTE, and at least 4 visits to Washington D.C.

I faced my giants, and the perils of higher education and actually completed the tenure process. How many school teachers can say they did that and then return to the K-12 arena?

I feel blessed to have seen it all and there is always a possibility that I will return to it. But for now I am coming back to my first love of teaching, and excited to actually try and practice what I have preached to my preservice teachers for the past 11 years.

Time to learn, and relearn, how to be a teacher. I want to learn from my much younger peers and also be a mentor when I can and distribute a bit of the wisdom I have accumulated in all my years in the profession.

A Story as Old as Time

In the beginning…

I was no more than a lump of clay in the hands of a cruel potter. Shaped and reshaped and destroyed only to be rebuilt again and again.

As time progressed…

My life took form and started to resemble something real and familiar and unique, but still unrecognizable. Not yet art, but primed with potential, and by value practically worthless.

Yet life continued…

I made the most of what the universe gave me, though limited in functional skills, I summoned every ounce of tenacity and hope and steadfastness - finally tasting the fruits of my success until my back was tired from the strain of it all.

But once again…

I found that the universe did not care if I won or lost, but it was always there to give me the push that I needed, always intertwined with pain and struggle and messiness.

At once I discovered…

There is a peace in the ruthlessness of the world. The darkness is a constant that never leaves us, try as we might to grasp for hope and peace and unconditional love, they are in short supply; we starve for the possibility of their existence.

Then I made peace…

With all my foibles and shortcomings and peculiarities and realized that I am flesh and bone and skin that treads the same path with billionaires and paupers alike. Try as they might to avoid it, their fates are eternally intertwined with ours.

In the End…

I discovered that I am not a great man, but a man who does great things, and a great many things. All those misguided adventures have molded me into that elusive work of art that I longed to see completed - fired and polished and on display for all to judge.

Rhyme (or Reason)

Sometimes I am a World War II decoder hunched over an intricate machine hoping to translate the mysterious codes into something that makes sense. If I am the enemy, why can’t I figure out my own plans?

Other times I am a sorcerer hovering over a pile of tea leaves, interpreting the splotches and stains like a Rorschach test. I need stronger glasses or I will lose the patterns. Is that a puppy?

But most of the time I look to the sky for the writing that I know will appear or the hand of doom etching my fate in the thick clouds. Can the mystery be locked in those grand and ominous puffs of water vapor?

We see what we want to see. We interpret what we think the universe wants us to know and where it wants us to go. Most of the time we are wrong. Does the universe even notice us over the hum of chaotic existence?

Lately it is best not to expect anything. To leave it to the wind or the gods or to something more powerful than myself. The burden is much too great for me to carry on my weary back. Were we ever meant to carry it alone?

The wheels turn and we peel day after day off the calendar, hoping time may give us just a glimpse of wonder, exhilaration, or confusion. Anything beats the humdrum predictability of our daily duties. Do we even hope for catastrophe, drama, or anger to make us feel something…anything?

Sometimes we are lulled into experiencing the mundane and dreariness of repetition, habit, and programmed simulations. Maybe there are those who thrive on that way of life, but I can’t stay there long. If we are patient, wouldn’t the certainty of reality change our mindsets and jolt us out of our slumber in due time?

Feel your lungs expanding. Count the rise and fall of your chest. Translate the thumps of your heart like Morse code. You are a miracle in a curious, fleshy container. You are the bringer of change and the master of the everyday. Take another breath and enjoy that one as well. Cherish each ‘what comes next’ moment as it passes by you. When should I schedule my next disaster?

 

Change: It’s a Feature, Not a Bug

In my brain, the image is crystal clear. A memory unlocked and played on the small screen of my synapses. It is a private show. No one else has these experiences. I have my own director, soundtrack, and cinematographer for the movie of my life.

The delicate images deceive us because many of these places and realities no longer exist, erased in time like a sandcastle brought level by the incoming waves. Does that make them any less real?

As our days proceed, the urgency to record these images and scenes rises with each grey hair on our heads. I feel the need to preserve remnants of the past because no one else seems to care if the memories live on. I know it is futile, but I try as I might to keep them intact.

Every person makes their own movies. The screen in which they work is unique to them, but we all have the same 3,600 minutes each day to build our lives and our legacy.

While the daily chaos whirls and suffocates us as we contemplate the horrors of the world, it seems selfish to worry about our own memories, images, and uneventful stories. They seem so small and insignificant. But we own them, just as they own us.

How powerful is our mind, that it makes the images alive again – the smile and laugh of my grandmother, the embarrassment of crushes in middle school, the exhilaration of mountain views on Boy Scout hikes, the heartbreak of deceit that stings the soul, and my spirit renewed by the gentle touch of love – all become real again as I bring them back into existence.  

These experiences may disappear when our light eventually fades, but that is not our concern for now. We must continue to build new memories, playing them back on our nightly screens, and smile at the thought of all that we have gained and lost, knowing that the memories, and all that we have ever known and experienced, will float away with us as the tide washes us out to sea.

When the Book Takes Hold

They call to me one by one – “Pick me, pick me!”

There are so many books to read and so little time

To enjoy them.

I am like a starving fish and they are the bait.

Once they take hold, fight though I may, they have their hook in me

Until the deed is done.

 

I have always been a reality man, so when fiction waves the lure in my direction,

Rarely do I bite. How do I know what is real in the world of fiction?

Yet lately I am allowing it to take root,

To explore those vast universes poured forth from the mind and creativity

Of the lonely author.

When I doubt the creation, I mortally wound their sincerity and

Disregard their gift to the world.

 

So down the rabbit hole I go and as I careen through the narrow passages

On my way to the gripping finale, the sadness begins to set in.

The last few pages are like the downward slope of a rollercoaster, but more like a water slide

Where I will drown in its torrential conclusion,

Hopefully resolved but nonetheless concluded

No matter how I may wish it not to be so.

 

When the relationship is over, I want to bask in it,

Take in the moment and allow myself and the written word

To hum like two exhausted lovers in the silence.

Now the book has served its purpose; it was meant to be read and not shelved

To rot and clutter on my bookshelves.

 

Lately I try to rest for a while and soak in the meaning of the written word

That has run its course in my spirit; to do otherwise feels like a betrayal.

My hunger always returns, and I must feed it to sustain my life.

The only way to satiate this hunger is to choose another book and gird myself up –

For a new journey awaits.