Staring at Another Blank Page, And it Looks Promising

Even though I've been back at work for two days already, it all really starts tomorrow.  That's when the kids come back to school, and now I'm finally getting excited.  I had the roughest end to a school year in my fifteen years of teaching back in June, and I left it behind thinking something would have to change.  I had a great summer, but when I got back yesterday, it felt like I was in the same bad place I'd left two short months ago. 

I came into a new classroom, the remnants of the tornado that was my last week still evident all over the place, and in between all of the beginning of year meetings, I've somehow managed to make it presentable for the students.  Coming back to school this year has not been what I envisioned it to be so far, and I'm hoping that once I'm with my kids, it will all come together, and this time it'll be better than ever!  Big change is happening in my life, good change, and I want to bring that feeling of optimism into my classroom, as well.  The blank page of this year is full of possibilities...

I usually post Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten on John's Music World for the beginning of the school year, and I still may.  It's one of my all-time favorite songs and to me it contains some pretty perfect words of wisdom for life:

Staring at the blank page before you

Open up the dirty window

Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance

So close you can almost taste it

Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else

Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open

Today is where your book begins

The rest is still unwritten

I've spoken about these lyrics many times and this time I let them speak for themselves.  For me they take on a new meaning at the start of this particular new school year.  I am being cautiously optimistic, but I've been telling my friends lately that I feel I am at the beginning stages of a long-awaited Renaissance in my life.  Though plans I had been making had all fallen to the wayside over the summer, new doors are opening up for me.  My professional life is clicking on all cylinders, and even my love life is showing some signs of well, life, and I feel like everything is starting to fall into place.  

These sentiments are partially evident in my last two posts, It's Happening and You Get What You Give, and now that summertime is over and I'm back to the grind, it's time to carry these feelings into the new school year and beyond.  I want to make this the best year ever for both myself and my students, and to reach for and get what I've been looking for so long...a better place!  And it all begins tomorrow.

Good luck to all of you teachers out there in this new school year.  Here's hoping the blank pages of yours are filled with nothing but happiness and success.  You deserve it!