Empty classroom, full heart

Today Joseph and Brooks joined me at school for a few hours to help me dismantle and pack up my classroom decor.

I was surprised by the brand of sentimentality I felt. I have historically worked pretty hard to keep my work and home life quite separate, but--likely because Joseph was working with me--the majority of what I remembered from the last five years had nothing to do with school. I will take the rest of the week to reminisce on classroom interactions and the parade of students in that space. Today, I instead remembered some very critical points in our marriage story over these last five years.

For most of the difficult points so far in our marital journey, my classroom was the one space I had where I could guarantee some truly alone time every single day. And it was a nice large space for that alone time! (I will miss having a whole classroom to myself at any future job.) During my prep period, I would work on grading and lesson plans, but I would also use that solo time to turn on some good tunes and process some hard sh...stuff. Those tunes have all stayed on my classroom playlists, and I turned on those playlists today. Cue the memories.

In stark and beautiful contrast to some of those times, our work today felt like comfortably coordinated partnership. I feel so grateful for the ways our marriage has evolved since my first year of teaching. I feel so relieved that we have already overcome so much; it makes whatever still lies before us seem less intimidating to know that it "looks like we made it" thus far. And maybe after feeling so warm and fuzzy about us today, I'll add this lovely Shania song to my playlist for the last few classroom days that I'll likely ever have:

Can't say I recommend this music video (what is even the point and how does anything about the beach relate to the lyrics of this song? the 90s were wild, man), but I do recommend Joseph as a husband. Also, I can't really recommend him because he's mine and you can't have him. He is my biggest cheerleader for every career decision, and I need that in my life. Bless you, Joseph! And thanks for helpin me clear out today. "We beat the odds together!" ❤️