The Grief We Choose

the right choices can still be heavy sometimes

Yesterday, I spent 7 hours sitting alongside a former version of myself.

The training for my new part-time job takes place at the school where I taught, in my old classroom, with one of my former students as a coworker. Life is funny, right?

I haven’t taught since November of 2021, yet there were bulletin boards I’d decorated completely intact and belongings of mine that I left behind reincorporated into my replacement’s room design. 

I had no problem walking into the building and attending to the new job, but on the drive home, feelings bubbled up.

I spent a few hours last night writing, voice memo-ing, and sitting with myself allowing those feelings some space. (I definitely ate some ice cream too. I’m not going to sit all high and mighty on a coping mechanism high horse over here). 

I’m not sure what I felt can neatly be labeled, but I know strands of grief run throughout. 

I was far more confident walking into the building than this goofy parking lot selfie portrays.

But here’s the thing, just because grief is present, doesn’t mean that I want that life back. 

There are decisions we make–ending a relationship, moving, changing jobs–that are the right thing for our authentic selves. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be complex and layered with grief. 

I think in this case, I was grieving my ability to answer questions like, “what do you do for work?”, or even, “what finally made you leave teaching?” without a clean answer. 

I also was gut punched with the physical evidence that the world continued without me. I don’t mean that in a conceded way, but to walk back in and find something that was once so familiar and filled with people who hold a special place in my heart, so changed from how I left it, was surprisingly hard. At one point some of my closest friends were all within 25 yards of me, and now some have taken new positions and changed grade levels, and well…I’m clearly gone. Which leads me to my last layer of feels. 

I’m an in-betweener.

Truthfully, I don’t ever want to land back into a life that has me jammed on one path again, but I hope to be more settled one day. Right now I am somewhere on a continuum between the life I left behind and being somewhat settled in a new one. I went from not having to build a damn thing for myself career-wise, to building every aspect from the ground up. I don’t belong in any one place anymore and that’s a significant shift. 

But as complicated as the emotions are I am thankful that they exist because right alongside them is the confidence in the decision that I made. 

The Maggie that decorated those bulletin boards was still denying her own power and part of a system that denied her the ability to show up wholeheartedly. Yesterday, she walked into that building the most authentically she ever has. 

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