When We Know

This weekend has been filled with a lot of “huh.” moments. You might know the kind. It’s when you realize something is over, or some priorities need to shift. You can ponder them all you want; you can even know – deep within you – that something has to change.

But until the “huh.” moment hits you, all you keep doing is spinning your wheels in saying what you ought to do, without every really doing it.

I won’t go into any details about those huhs that hit me; it’s way too early in the summer to spill those beans. But I can give you some details about what that means about those priorities I was talking about a minute ago.

A little background for context. This school year, I decided to go for my National Board Certification. Any educator who has been through the process will tell you about how grueling it can be. I chose to complete all four components in one year, which turned out to be quite an insane little quest.

The truth is, in the process of completing all four components, I experienced great sways of doubt: about who I was as an educator, and about who I was as a human in general. At one point, I seriously considered resigning and confessing that, in these nearly 40 years of teaching, I was nothing more than an imposter.

It was horrible.

A few friends saw me through to the end, and to them, I owe the world. Without alluding to Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird book and approach to writing, they were the one-component-at-a-time whisperers, and I am grateful for their encouragement, support, love, and belief in me when, in the darkest hour, I had lost all belief in myself.

After I had submitted the last of the four components, I felt…triumphant. And in the days and weeks that have followed that near-midnight accomplishment on that Saturday night in May, I have become a better teacher because of the experience.

So for that, and for them, I am grateful.

The story doesn’t end there, though. In isolation, it’s a great little tale of overcoming adversity and leaning into the people who are your people. But in the bigger picture, some “huh” thoughts were surfacing amidst the process where my priorities shifted to a national certification.

I missed friends’ birthdays. I forgot important dates with others. I broke promises to colleagues and lifelong friends.

I even missed opportunities to say goodbye to people I loved before they passed on.

Today, this is what I carry. And this weekend, The “huhs” punched me in the gut and told me this can’t ever happen again.

This afternoon, my wife, son, and I spent the afternoon at our local vineyard, Boordy, holding good conversation in the shade while sharing just-as-good wine. In those moments, when Amy was telling one of her epic stories to Braeden, I opened my daybook and started capturing a few of those “huh” thoughts.

“Make amends with the past, but passing time is running dry.
When do we learn from the stories we missed, the memories gone by?
‘Tis quite the fool who ‘lows the world to blur on
I have gathered my rosebuds but tended them none;
Mired in the tired mud of lines long dead,
While friends stand by, stroll away, hanging sorrows, shaking heads.
Yet, these petals I hold, there is still but a tick of time
To breathe a little life with fresh note-plucks in merry rhyme
With the world, with you, with the beating heart of mine —
A rekindled love of humankind.”

And so, good friends, we listen to the “huhs” that find their way into our thoughts. We make amends, breathe new life into fresh, fallen petals, and we shift our priorities so that the ones we love are the center of our lives, and not pushed to the peripheral edges of existence.

Listen closely. The “huhs” might be nudging you. Stop what you are doing, and hear them out.

They might just change everything about you, and the people around you.