I’m a teacher again.
I’m a student again.
And I am…fine?
I’ve been waffling writing this for a while because this stage of my life is just beginning and and I always feel like I need to have some sort of closure before I reflect. Also, gestures at the wider world where more important and urgent things are happening.
But I am a writer. And I write this not really for self-promo right now, but to share and reflect with other writers.
Right now I’m in the middle of my four-day weekend thanks to the New Jersey Education Association convention, during which schools are closed. (It is too far away for me to go and the last thing I need right now is more work.) It has not gone exactly as I hoped. I put too much pressure on myself to be productive when I am supposed to have a break.
I have needed a break a little more than I realized, but overall, I am fine. This is important, because I stopped teaching the first go-round two years ago because my mental health forced me to stop. But now I have much more support at work (thanks, New Jersey) and a better work-life balance and support at home (thanks to Tay, my partner). Even then, when my colleagues ask how I’m doing, I often say “okay.” I feel muted sometimes. Maybe it’s another depressive episode? But I also know I am avoiding getting too excited about things because then what if I feel out of control like I did before? I can’t let teaching take over my life again. So I am measured and cautious and keep my emotions in check.
I’ve also finished my first grad school class and started my second, and I managed to balance all of that, too! (I am getting a Master’s in Special Education through a local university’s online program.) Even so, the one week I had in between classes I could feel a bit of a weight lifted from my responsibilities.
And I…haven’t been writing. This is the most I have written since school started. I think I was afraid, again. Afraid of getting caught up in something that demanded my attention which could lead to hyperfixation, which could lead to a lack of sleep, which could lead to a worsening mental health. Especially when the novel I am working on is so emotional. I had to even take a break after I wrote the following part of this newsletter to regulate my emotions.
But, also, sometimes writing can calm me down. I am not sure why I have these two different reactions at different times.
And yet, I am fine. I have had some rough mornings, but I’ve had nowhere near a panic attack at school. I got a good score on my first observation. I have become rather comfortable emailing parents. These are things that would have been massive causes of anxiety in the past. Heck, prior to last year just being inside a school brought a fresh wave of tortured memories. This is big for me.
I’m reading All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir right now because I can’t not read books that are emotionally intense apparently, and one of the character’s has struggled being completely honest in college essays which might be a detriment to her. It reminded me of my own frustrating college application experience. For the one school I applied to through Common App (I did get in, but didn’t go because it wasn’t where I really wanted to be), I think I wrote about how I wasn’t either an introvert or extrovert. (Because I did not yet understand the depths of my neurodiversity.) Boring, right? And my boyfriend at the time (we broke up that January after 2.5 years together, due to a large part the strain the college process put on us), wrote this funny thing about going to a Canadian museum and accidentally coming across some naked, sexual statues. And I was frustrated because I felt like I hadn’t had any Big Things happen to me yet, because I was 18 and my family rarely took “vacations” that weren’t to visit family. I didn’t have anything flashy. I barely understood my anxiety at the time, and it was so connected to school that wouldn’t it be a liability if I wrote about this big challenge that was still eating me alive?
And now, I have enough life experience to write compelling personal essays, but what I’ve been struggling with for over two years is that I am not always willing to share. Some things I want to keep to myself. Some things I don’t want to be consumable for others.
Maybe this is why I have gravitated back toward fiction. My main character in this novel I’ve been working on since 2019 has a new angle where I am unpacking the trauma she experienced from what happened to her, which isn’t what has ever happened to me, but emotionally it also is. The emotional truth is what fiction is about for me. (This also means it is rather heavy and difficult to write. I haven’t written so much as I am now in this newsletter since school started, not including my grad school papers which probably burnt me out on other writing).
This has made me decide to start journaling again.
This past Tuesday was an in-service day at school and I had some great discussions with the only male English teacher (gender is weird. I tend to get along with male teachers more in general…there is something culturally different there) about books and identity and everything. It made me reflect and I ended up typing out on my notes out an outline of What Happened when I lost my first teaching job back in Indiana. It’s a story I have told myself and some others over and over but not always completely truthfully or with full context. I still want to tell my mentor about it, because it impacts my approach to teaching so much. It is the reason I am just fine.
The good thing is that a lot of anti-LGBTQ school board candidates lost in New Jersey and nation wide. I feel some less despair, but we have such a fight ahead of us.
Let us have strength together.
Murray!!
If you don’t already know, my partner
’s debut novel (a queer magical middle grade novel-in-verse) is coming out next year. Specifically, we can now say, on May 21, 2024. It is available for pre-order and you can add it on Goodreads. And there is officially a cover now and I’m so glad I can share it because it is GORGEOUS (shoutout artist Sas Millidge). Also, she did an interview over at a fellow newsletter from !I wouldn’t be promoting this so hard if this book didn’t mean a lot to me. It’s about surviving as a queer person by finding your people. And also, seeing Tay work (and reading along with her and correcting minor typos and grammar, lol) has inspired me, too.
A bit of a music coda…
Tay and I also went to the boygenius Madison Square Garden concert which was a beautiful experience that I’ll probably write about some other time. (I had to fight crying during “Please Stay” so hard…) But I mention it because Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker in their suits play a role in Murray…
(It’s my fault. I’ve been a fan since 2021 and introduced Tay. But now she is a giant Lucy Dacus and boygenius fan and it’s been so lovely to share these musical memories together.)
Music also plays a huge role in the novel I’m writing. It’s a part of the plot. Every chapter is named after a song. I have a playlist so gigantic I had to split it into five parts for every act of the novel. There is now a pivotal scene where a Julien Baker song plays a role, and because I love newsletters that end with a song (even if I admit I rarely click on them…), I think I’ll leave that song here: