Friday, May 20, 2016

What I Loved and Learned in Louisville



What I Loved and Learned in Louisville

I thought leaving Effingham County almost 10 years ago would surely break my heart. When we crossed the county line with our last load of furniture headed to Burke County I couldn’t help but bawl like a baby. Leaving friends behind then was seriously one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I was so happy to be moving out of a subdivision and into “the wild” as the kids called it but dang it was hard to leave. Over time it got easier and I got used to a new normal. But this move might hurt worse. Even though I’m not moving my RESIDENCE this time, I am moving to a new school system and leaving some of the dearest people in the world behind in Louisville. Teaching in Louisville was more challenging than anywhere I've been before. Teaching in a poor rural district is hard. If the teachers in districts like these don’t stick together and lean on each other- if they don’t bond, if they aren’t good friends it just doesn’t work. It’s too hard a job to do on your own. You need your friends or you’re as good as sunk. Let me give you a few examples.
1.If you catch the science lab on fire, you need a friend to scream hysterically to get the fire extinguisher!
2. If you catch the science lab on fire, you also need a friend to tell you after you’ve stumbled out of a smoke filled room, that you’re missing the Italian leather sandal that was previously on your right foot.
3. If a rabbit gets loose in your classroom, you need a friend who can help you catch it. It also helps if this friend still agrees to chase the rabbit even though she is wearing a super cute lily pulitzer skirt.
4.You need a friend who will immediately send you the phone number of another friend so that they can efficiently coordinate the release of 500 crickets into the 8th grade hall.
5.You need a friend who will, in an effort to salvage all our jobs, willingly smooth things over with the principal after 500 crickets are released into the 8th grade hall.
6.You need a friend who will tell you if you are saran wrapping the wrong teacher’s car on their birthday. (you hear me Greg Burns? You need a FRIEND!)
7.If you lock yourself out of the dressing room at Maxway during school hours, you need a good friend on speed dial.
8. If you get your hand caught in the ipad cart because you are wearing some hippie style hemp bracelets, you need a friend who will get you out after rolling on the floor laughing hysterically.
9.You need a friend who realizes how ADD you are and will always do testing labels and other tedious teacher bullcrappery for you because they understand you are honestly completely incapable of completing such tasks without cursing enough to send the whole district to hell.
10. You need a friend who will tell you your lipstick looks like a damn vampire so get a new shade.
11.It’s always good to have friends who boost your self esteem by assuming you know the scientific name of every snake, lizard, chameleon, gecko, spider, and jackelope known to man and sends you the pictures of the aforementioned critters for identification confirmation!
12. You know you’ve found a great group of friends when they know your keys, your phone, your purse, your tervis tumbler, and even the book you’re reading by heart so that they can return these items to you after you’ve left them in various places all over the school.
13.After sending a text saying what a crappy day you had, you need a friend who will simply text a picture of a margarita back to you. It’s teacher code language for go sit on the porch, let it go and live to fight another day.
14. You need friends who know your shortcomings, do their best to make up for what you lack, tolerate your weird quirks and love you anyway even during those times when you're just not easy to love.

As I toted my first box out of my office yesterday I had to think back to when I was toting my first box INTO Louisville Middle School 9 years ago. I hardly knew anyone. I was still missing Effingham County and all my friends there. We were living with my parents while building a house. It was probably the most stressful year of my life. It got even worse when I lost a baby the following spring. I felt so far away from anyone who really knew me or cared about me. But it was also during this time that LMS became my new family. They rallied around me and kept me going through those following weeks even though they hardly knew me and I have never forgotten that.

So as I get ready to move all my “teacher junk” to Jenkins County Middle/High in the next few weeks, it’s so bittersweet. I cannot talk much about it without becoming a weepy mascara streaked mess but I know it’ll get easier as the weeks pass. I am so excited to get my hands back into potting soil again. I want to leave school every day smelling of sawdust and varnish and maybe with a little dirt under my nails. I’m thrilled to be teaching Addie next year. My heart is overcome with joy when thinking about being at the same school as Pete and the girls. I’m totally reinvigorated at the thought of teaching Agriculture again. It seems so surreal how things have come full circle. Now I hope to end my career in a few years the same way it began- in a greenhouse, in a woodshop, at hog shows, or maybe even in a welding booth. I am pretty sure it’s a situation that God has set up just for me and my family and I look forward to our new adventures together. I want to feel about teaching the way I felt back then. Positive that I am making a difference in the lives of kids. Not just test scores. Not just numbers.. but lives. That doesn’t make my heartache any easier right now, but it will in time. Thanks for the memories, Louisville. A piece of my heart will always be there.

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

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