40 years of suffering, Happy Birthday!

okay, technically I just turned 39 but it's my 40th yeeeear.

The vision I had for my birthday last fall, before the election, before the budget cuts- is very far from the birthday I experienced this week. Because, at the time, I was head over heels for going to work and for various reasons, I assumed I would celebrate my Birthday with some of my absolute favorite people in my life. The life I had been building brick by brick, and finally caught some momentum in, for the first time in the last three years. I saw myself continuing to make education, as a vocation, work for my family and it felt like I had finally hit my stride. All was well, even if the world was on fire I had finally found community.

Working in education felt right in a bone deep generational curse/ gift kinda way. I walked a fine line showing up 110% and adapting my responsibility level to keep my current output level sustainable. Achieving this made me nearly eurphoric in such a dismal time. I had finally found a way to make it, mostly, work for me after completely draining myself the first go around and now I’m moving on?