Spring Rain

This afternoon was a gloomy, wet, snuggle in and listen to the pitter patter, kind of afternoon.  I loved it.

Once I got home and unpacked my day I needed this time of pitter patter observation just to be.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a fresh spring day but there is just something about snuggling in and watching a few episodes of Project Runway and then grabbing my latest obsession in book form.  I think there’s comfort in unwinding.

Rain is one of the most beautiful and inspiring things.  It makes spring interesting when you’re a track coach, that’s for sure.  But beyond that, rain is pure, clean, fresh, annoying, cold, wet and down right oxymoronic.  Rain is one of the most frustrating and infuriating things.

I think that Rain is kind of like teaching.  This is my first year of teaching, so if you are a veteran teacher, I apologize if this seems inaccurate.  Never mind, I don’t apologize….this is my blog.  If you disagree, start your own blog!  :)

I digress…

For example teaching can be so refreshing and exciting and beautiful, just like rain.  Teaching can also be infuriating, frustrating, annoying and cold, also just like rain.  It’s like enduring a storm, really.  There are the ebbs and flows of a school day and the ebbs and flows of a school year then, after the storm blows over we are left with something beautiful, (summer vacation!  Ha ha.  Just kidding) genuine learning, knowledge, relationships, encouragement.

It is frustratingly wonderful.

As I come to a close on my first year of teaching bear with me as I make one more analogy pertaining to the emotions evoked by the weather outside.  I think this year has been a lot of things for me but now, almost in the last month of school, it is like the first rain storm of spring.  I’m feeling cozy, comfortable even.  You see, all year I’ve been treading to keep my head above water, learning new people and routines and techniques and expectations and time management and the list goes on and on.  And now finally, I can breathe a little easier.  Not because I have all of these things down or I by any means have everything figured out, I think it is just more familiar, more comfortable.  It’s really the feeling I’ve wanted for as long as I’ve wanted to be a teacher (basically since dinosaurs roamed the earth), the feeling of being cozy in juggling everything it means to be a teacher (I’m sure that those of you who are not teachers are saying to yourselves about now, “Self, this girl is stark crazy.  How hard can it be to teach middle school?  It’s just a bunch of kids you have to corral until the bus comes at 3:20.”  To you I say…walk a day in my shoes, it’s…. unexplainable).

Now it’s time for this teacher to curl up in her bed while she listen to the rain and reflects on how something so small and seemingly insignificant can teach her so much.

(pitter patter, pitter patter…)