Fabulousness

I'd like to introduce you to some of the best women I know. These are the girls who got me through my first year teaching:

Me, Kristen & Emily, Susan, Lorraine, Sandie and Jennifer

When I accepted my first teaching job, I just knew it was the job I was supposed to take. I had turned down other job offers because none of them felt right. Just as I was starting to get nervous about this strategy, I interviewed with a principal who totally impressed me. I accepted the first grade position with all the enthusiasm, hope and optimism you would expect of a girl who had been playing school her ENTIRE childhood--complete with chalkboard, anti-dust chalk and imaginary students.

So imagine my dismay when my lifelong dream of being a teacher quickly lost its luster due to the nitty-gritty day-to-day struggles of teaching in an inner-city population with needs and sorrows beyond anything I had ever experienced. Though teaching in that setting was my life's passion, I look back on this first year of teaching as my boot camp. Not just in teaching, but in life. It was the most challenging thing I had done. I had a collection of angry and defiant little boys. They would call out, cuss, hit on the playground, goof off, refuse to do their assignments and talk back like seasoned pranksters. I felt like I was losing my mind as I worked tirelessly to inspire and teach them. I questioned my ability to do this job on a daily basis for an entire school year. Getting up each morning took monumental effort.

And so, by the time lunch rolled around, I would often walk into the staff room with my chin quivering, feeling defeated and fragile. That is when these fabulous women, who remain dear friends, would rally around me with hugs, stories of their own first year woes, bites of yummy homemade treats, after school trips to Target for retail therapy and laughter that I can still hear in my mind.

Fast forward six years, and I walked into Sandie's house this past weekend with a brave smiling face, but that familiar lunch room feeling was just under the surface. I cried as they asked and listened, but at the end of the day I had smiled and laughed more than the tears had flowed. How could I not laugh and smile when Lorraine and Jennifer sang, Sandie snorted, Susan enthusiastically explained how to make the best! salmon! ever! (Susan is a sublime cook) and Kristen and her beautiful daughter Emily passed their homemade fudge around. There was an entertaining round of White Elephant, where someone ended up with giant underwear on her head. And more laughing 'til the tears came.

On the last day of my first year of teaching I thought to myself I did it. I survived. Someone told me, "If you can teach here, you can teach anywhere." Which proved true. Nothing was ever as hard as that first year. Nor has anything since felt quite as rewarding. I will never forget those sweet, difficult boys. Their names, faces and voices are etched in my mind. Because those little people made me the teacher I am today. They taught me to be patient. Nurturing. Firm. Loving. Accepting. With my students, and with myself. All things I thought I already knew how to be, but clearly I had so much more to learn.

And now I feel like I'm in round two of Boot Camp. Wanting so much to be the mom I hoped and dreamed of being and yet nothing has quite gone the way I imagined it would. But now I know something I didn't quite understand then: the hardest, most challenging, mind-blowingly difficult experiences usually yield the greatest rewards. And with the distraction of some good people along the way (who will sing "Besame Mucho" or "Ave Maria" just so you'll laugh 'til you cry) the difficult journey can be quite enjoyable.

I love you, fabulous ladies.