JoyDrops

Originally posted 2-21-22

edited and reposted 11-28-23

No puppy poop messes today!

Family dinner at Owen and Alexis’! Excellent pork and homemade Mac n Cheese Owen and Lex!!! And Robert – that was an amazing salad! Thank you! I just Love being with you all so much

Time with Debi and her family to celebrate her first grandbaby boy coming in April!

Happy texts from Lain in Florida

So much encouragement from people who’ve read my posts- thank you everyone so good to know we are not alone!

No negative self talk today- well maybe just once about some hereditary dark under eye circles…– replaced that negative with – I’m SO thankful for concealer!!! WIN!

Sitting all together tonight watching silly pranks on tv and hearing all of my guys belly laughing…man is that good heart medicine!

These puppies are really shaping up from our puppy potty training boot camp! Yay!

I was looking back at some notes I had the sweet surfers write at the end of last year to the new sweet surfers… this one stood out…

“For a Great Kindergarten class you need lots of smiles”

It stood out mostly because at the time I had no idea that this child’s basic, truthful, taken for granted message would so profoundly impact my joy…

But oh has it…the lack of smiles has ripped the joy right out of my teaching-

(Side note! This is simply my personal, honest, unexpected, emotionally exhausting experience – this is my truth and not a political position – and to be honest it makes me sad that I feel the need to qualify that, but I do…the masks made their smiles disappear…again- my feelings, personal, honest and mine- no judgement, no political statements, just me missing smiles…)

My joy drop posts came to be out of my desperation to bring back some of that ripped away joy…so that I could push through and walk through my classroom door each day and give my students the love and joy they are entitled to simply because they are 5 years old and so excited to learn. I realized quite quickly this year that they were not enjoying being read to…and I was not enjoying reading to them. Honestly this broke my spirit…my most precious time of every school day since I started teaching is when I am reading to my students and have a front row seat to joy…there is nothing closer to pure joy than watching their faces and seeing their smiles and their facial expressions when I read to them.

But it was gone…from day one of school this year…gone.

My view from my front row seat was not anything familiar- it was now a sad, sour stranger that had not one ounce of joy…not one drop.

They were disengaged. I soon learned they enjoyed hearing and watching others read stories online…they could see faces, expressions, hear clearly and laugh loudly…they were missing what they didn’t even know they needed…

and slow drips of joy would leak through in those moments they watched a face on a flat screen…but I didn’t have a front row seat to it…I was watching from my perch- an eagle’s nest view…and the longer I sit there the joy drop drought deepens…and so the joy drop posts began…and as hard as they are to write some days they are filling my dry, joyless soul and helping me see and find and feel some joy again.

Today, my school board made the very difficult decision to allow our students and staff to go mask optional…this was one of my joy drops today…I’m so thrilled to have my front row view back… even if some of those sweet smiles are still masked…there are joy drops filling the drought in my heart…

As hopeful and thrilled as I am, I know this is not how others are feeling… this isn’t lost on me- and I feel deeply sad there will be a different angst. None of this is right or fair…and I pray everyday for the division, the fear, the anger, the sadness and the angst to all go away…

Tomorrow, Tuesday, 2-22-22, “twos day” – there will be a plethora of teachable moments about respecting others opinions and choices and being responsible for our self and being kind to others that don’t choose the same things we do…it won’t be easy, but I am ready…

God has been filling me, hydrating my Joy… giving me a front row seat to the joy drops in my life- bringing me back to who He knows me to be.

I am His Joy.