Life.

It’s nothing but a roller coaster … the ups, downs, straightaways, loops, twists and turns. And sometimes it’s hard to believe that there are millions going through the same things or very similar things as you are at the very same moment. I’ve gotten so much better on my journey in how I react and respond to the things thrown at me. At this stage of life – it’s all about the reset.

So, teaching is a hard job. Like seriously hard. No, I’m not soliciting pity. What I am doing is just sharing what teachers are having to deal with in the classrooms on a regular, daily and on-going basis. If everyone had to substitute in a classroom for a couple of days, they’d understand it. Really, really, really understand. No, seriously. No joke. No lie. For real. As in for real, real.

Then you have some leaders who say things like this, “Please leave your personal lives, feelings and things you’re going through at home when you come to work.” I have one of these types of leaders in my life. She thinks that things that I’m going through, experiencing or dealing with should just be neatly packed away from 7.00 am – 3.00 pm daily. Why? I cannot answer the why because I’m no robot and it does not bloody compute.

You see, there’s a mentality in education and quite frankly, in corporate America as well that is absurd and insane . The idea, hands-down, is that they are okay with working people to the brink of a complete and utter breakdown whilst not paying you what you absolutely are owed nor treating you like a human being. The leadership of schools and corporate America is so indoctrinated that they are experts in making you feel like everything is your fault. I can tell you that in education, those not in the trenches have no clue about the clientele we deal with – students and their parents. If we set up a clue stand and sold clues, they’d still have no clue.

I say all of this to say this … I put my health on hold for the sake of my students. I am fortunate that the biopsy came back today and the bone tumour is benign. Word of the day: BENIGN (n) – A growth that is not cancer. So, add that to my plate along with my parents having COVID back in early January, losing my teaching partner – who I miss and am really having a hard time with her not being next door and then having the knowledge of a possible battle ahead – it has been “in the bed by 7.00 pm on school nights exhausting.”

A really important piece of advice from my friend John, “Bryce you are 100% replaceable at work, but you’re not to those who love you.” So, I’ll be taking some time away from my classroom – when needed – after I have this little plum-sized ball of nothing removed from the top of my tibia. And I’ve decided that journaling, blogging – whatever you wanna call this – is good for me because I get things out of my head!

So, what’s something I do to reset? It’s pretty simple … I watch Schitt$ Creek for the bajillioneth time. If you’ve never watched it … get to it! It’s on HULU now and it’s hysterical!

And I watch Katy sing one of my favourites …

Cause baby, you’re a firework …

Thanks for listening … reading — well, you know.