What moves me forward

The school week is full as EOG testing continues, and students become restless now that they know they have passed. There was a thrill in the air last week when students got their phone calls to tell them the good news, and teachers walked a little lighter for the first time in weeks as the pressure of the testing was finally lifted.

My principal shared with our staff the news of my transfer to another school. I had already told those with whom I work closest of my plans, but when she made the announcement at our Monday staff meeting, I heard soft expressions of shock and surprise... I had not expected that at all. I looked around to see the source, and met the eyes of teachers who genuinely were going to miss me. I realized I would miss them as well. I didn't know what to say!

I've been so busy taking care of business, as I always do, that I haven't even begun to think about how I'm going to do this. How am I going to say goodbye to them? To the teachers who have become my friends, my supporters, my teammates? How am I going to leave them like this?... with only a simple explanation that I am needing a change in my life, and I'm sorry I have to do it this way. I don't know how else to do it.

In recent years (since my 40's) I've come to recognize that if I listen to that small voice within my heart and head, which I attribute to God, the source of what I know and feel, the Lord of my conscience, I often find myself doing things I would not dare do on my own recognizance. I'd be too scared to step into the strange, dark room, to leap off the cliff, to jump out of the boat into the water. I'd be afraid of the consequences.

However, I've learned that the consequences are not to be feared, but to be welcomed. I've grown every time I've stepped out into unknown territory. I expect to do the same this time. Call it intuition if you'd like. I call it faith.

Certainly, transferring to a new school cannot be like leaping off a cliff, unless of course, I'm talking about bungee jumping! I'm not risking death by transferring to a new school, at least not in the physical sense of the word. I might be risking the death of some part of me that has become stalled or frozen, whetherpersonal or professional. I might be risking the death of what was familiar, which doesn't have to be painful. I might be risking the death of life as I know it... and something different, something I haven't even thought about is going to take its place.

That's the part, the something I haven't even thought about, that moves me forward... that part excites me, and makes me want to do this. What will I see, hear, say, and do in my new school that will change me?

Not knowing the answer is the invitation to move forward.

Wondering what it will be like reminds me of what it is like to be a younger person again, starting out life on her first job, her whole world and life ahead of her, open to new possibilities, filled with questions and wonder... yes, that's what moving into a new school feels like for me right now.

The image of the cocooning moth appears in my mind as I write this. It went in a caterpillar, it came out a beautiful moth.

I am still a caterpillar!

Ever changing on the inside.