I have already finished two grad school classes, and by the
end of the summer, I will have completed five as I work towards my Masters in
Education and my certification as a Reading Specialist. I realized I had not
advertised much on this blog about my plans after finishing a year with MVC,
and for many reasons, I hesitated posting my news.
I’ve been back on the East Coast for a little over a month
and it still feels weird sometimes, like I will wake up and go out to see my
trailer in Arizona. It feels weird to be living in a house that is three
stories tall. It is weird to have sidewalks and neighbors everywhere when I had
grown so accustomed to the natural silence of the Reservation. It feels weird
to have this humidity (I am melting) and more rain in two weeks than in the
past ten months.
Something that I haven’t said, that I haven’t admitted to
publically, is how much I miss Arizona. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, and there are
things I would change if I could, but it was overwhelmingly one of the most
important years of my life. I struggled, fought, loved and cried throughout the
past years and learned about the type of person I wanted to be along with the
type of person I knew I would never be.
I met someone who became my roommate, then my friend, then
my sister. Allison and I started out virtual strangers who ended up crying as
we said our goodbyes at the airport last month. We wore silly hats as we
strolled through Wal-Mart speaking in our fake Russian accents and finding each
other by playing Marco Polo (still wearing flamingo-pink straw beach hats). We
ran away to the 24-hour Denny’s and got milkshakes at 1 in the morning after
the last day of school to reminisce on our first year of teaching. We sang to
the prisoners of the Window Rock jail each month, and pressed our faces up to
the bars as we held hands with the inmates and prayed with them.
I watched with tears of joy streaming down my face, hugging
a coworker as we watched our first class of seniors recess out of the
auditorium after turning their tassels. I packed my bags and prepared to leave,
fragmented by continual visits to friends who became my family during my year.
The thing I haven’t said, what I haven’t told myself is that
it is okay to miss where I’ve been and what I’ve done. Arizona, the Navajo
Nation, my students and co-workers and community and friends- they will all be
with me forever. It’s okay to miss the places and faces of my time there
because it was so important to me. I
promised my juniors I would go back next year and watch them graduate, and it
is a promise I intend to keep. I love those kids too much to ever walk away
from them, and I already can’t wait to go back and see how much they’ve grown.
It is said that students never forget a good teacher, that
they will remember how a teacher made them feel over everything else. I think
the same should be said for students. I will never forget my students, how they
made me feel because they made me feel alive, like I was doing the right thing.
We had our struggles and our successes, but I loved each child dearly, and I
hope that even if they forget what I taught them down the line, they will never
forget that I tried to make them all understand that they were incredibly
important.
That said, I also love my new community and my new city. I
love getting to know the people that I will be going to school and living with
and meeting my new coworkers. I am excited about teaching in a new school and
meeting my new students. I have already designed my classroom in my head and I
am near to bursting with ideas for my kids and lessons for this year. I am
ready to embark on this new journey and although I am still sad about leaving
Arizona sometimes, I know that my memories will sustain until I return. My
friends will be my friends although miles separate us, and my students will
always be “my kids” no matter where they go in life.
Cheers to the next adventure!
