Summer 2024 Reflection - Mrs. Geographist

To wrap up our look back at one of the most unique summers in our family's history, here are some thoughts from my lovely wife. 

Summer time and more

As I reflect on the past summer, I find myself thinking more about the decisions that I have had to make in the past year. It was around January when I had to start thinking about starting over with a different career or changing what I wanted to do with my life. Overall, I have been blessed to be given the choice on what I want to do so there was no pressure from home about where I should go. For those of you who don’t know, I was a teacher for two years. When my principal told me that I wouldn’t be renewed, I was devastated. I felt like my power was taken away from me and all of my hard work obtaining my degree had gone out the window. I’ve always had challenges with my self-esteem, and this did not help. I spent the next few months trying to figure out what to do with my life if teaching wasn’t an option anymore. My husband said that I could literally do anything I wanted, but I knew I didn’t want to stay home. The first decision came when I saw that I like the relationship-building part of teaching but did not like that my job performance was dependent on whether a student passed the state testing. I decided that I wanted to go back to school for my master’s degree in counseling. When I applied, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get in but with some encouragement from colleagues and friends I applied and was accepted. I am currently working on it and will graduate in 2026.

When everyone finished school for the summer, we decided to take our family vacation early because my husband and daughter were blackbelt testing and I wanted them to enjoy the fun before they started the difficult task that was in front of them. I picked California because my middle daughter wanted to go back to Disney and experience the Star Wars attraction that she missed right before COVID. I really enjoyed the trip even though there was a lot of driving involved. It was fun to revisit the places that we were at during spring break of 2020. One of my favorite things to see was the baby hippo that was born four years ago at the San Diago Zoo was still there and all grown up. This trip went great, and I loved the weather. I think that is the reason that people at the Disney parks in California were more pleasant. With lows in the 60’s and highs in the 70’s, it was very pleasant. 

When we got back from our trip it was Vacation Bible School mode. For the last few years my children’s minister has trusted me to be the director of 5th grade. This is the kids last year before they move to the youth group and we try to make it special for them. Honestly, after the year I had with my job, I wasn’t in the mood to do it this year. My self confidence was at an all time low, but I had to learn that it is ok to ask others for help. This was the first year I haven’t felt prepared, but my team and I pulled it together and the kids did great. I learned that it doesn’t matter if everything is perfect, the kids are the important ones.

Once VBS was over, I spent time helping with various activities. We were getting along fine when a little hurricane called Baryl came ashore and caused a ruckus. I honestly thought we were going to be with power because we slept through the worst of the rain. We got up and had breakfast even, with no issues. Once the wind picked up, that’s when the power finally lost it. I was convinced that it would come back on soon because in the past, it always had. An hour or two later, we were convinced that it wasn’t coming back on and went to my mother-in-law’s house who has a house generator. It was so kind for her to let us come over knowing she only had a three bedroom house and there were way more of us. The biggest feeling that stuck to me was boredom. We literally just had to wait to do anything. After a few days of sitting around, I decided to be productive and help at our church’s cooling center. It was a great way to reach out to families that were in more need than I was. We were fortunate to get power back after about 5 days, but some others had to wait longer. Many people were trying to place blame on the government or the power companies, but my thoughts are that they were doing the best they could with the people and information they had at the time. There were people blaming the power grid like they were when the big freeze happened a few years ago. However, when there are multiple trees down on powerlines, it doesn’t make a difference if there is electricity running though or not.

During the final segment of the summer, I got to take part in an activity that has always crossed my mind but had never done before. I volunteered for a special needs camp that our church was the host of this year. I was nervous at first because the only time I had spent time with children with special needs was in my classroom. After training us and giving the background of our students, we were placed with an individual student and were assigned to be their buddy. The great thing was that we were in a classroom of other adults and students so we could always help each other as needed. It is interesting the way that the kids took to different buddies throughout the week. I learned so much about how kids with special needs think and feel. It definitely helped me this year as I have been hired as a super sub for a school in my new district.

As we move into a new school year now, I am blessed with a job where people treat me with kindness and respect rather than disdain. I am starting in my master’s classes and will complete my first one at the end of this month. I have realized that I am very blessed and will continue to think about that as things get tough later on.