My relaxing summer “off” as a teacher ended with a missed alimony check and an unsettling app notification. (I spun out exactly the way I always do. Turns out that’s not the same as failing.)
Before any new transition, I like to make a nice 389-point plan outlining exactly how I will proceed. Perfectly.
Naturally, I will enter this new era weighing 105 pounds.
I will have a new exercise routine and a new diet. I will wake up early, do yoga, and follow my budget beautifully — remembering when it is appropriate to spend money (making memories with people I love) and when it is not (convenience, DoorDash, a small pity party).
There will also be a detailed and posted morning routine, an evening routine, and a housekeeping routine.
Has one of these plans ever carried over into my actual life?
Great question.
The answer, unequivocally, is no.
This summer, though, I decided to try something different.
What if, instead of becoming an entirely new person before school started, I was just… fine with the person I already am?
Need to lose some weight? Love me anyway.
Didn’t exercise as much as I intended to this summer? Love me anyway.
Struggling with boundaries for myself on budgeting and spending? Love me anyway.
This was actually going pretty well. I focused on progress, not perfection.
My Very Relaxing Summer “Off”
I’m a teacher, and people tend to think teachers spend the summer floating around in pools and taking naps.
I’ll admit, it is wonderful having two months of waking up and drinking a hot cup of tea on my couch, working in my pajamas.
But “not reporting to work” and “not working” are two different things.
During the school year, I have a classroom full of children expecting me to teach them multiple subjects every day. That requires studying standards, planning lessons, finding or creating materials, and figuring out how to make those lessons work for the needs of the children in my school.
Yes, teachers have planning periods. Those tend to be filled with things like behavior documentation, parent communication, counselors, case managers, and the other administrative tasks necessary.
So I spent a lot of my summer planning for school. I also tutored for extra money, updated my professional portfolio, worked on curriculum products to sell on Teachers Pay Teachers, and applied for part-time work I could do around my teaching schedule.
I also looked for ways to dramatically reduce my grocery budget — which resulted in me learning to cook dried pinto beans and bake sourdough. I currently have approximately ten Ziploc bags of brown beans in my freezer and a sourdough starter living in my refrigerator.
So clearly, things were going well. For once, I wasn’t entering a new season thinking I needed to completely reinvent myself. I felt like I was growing. I felt like I had, after 52 years, finally learned to ride the waves of life — to do my best with the place I was in, bloom where I was planted, so to speak.
However, in the midst of the productivity and the mindset around loving myself through a season of messiness, something happened that shook the foundation of the house my children and I live in. I became aware that I was at risk of losing a third of the income I’d planned on this year, starting this month.
And then, the night before I went back to school, that little voice showed up.
Who do you think you are?
You’re wasting your time.
You’re a loser.
And I listened to it.
I DoorDashed Taco Bueno. I ate half a bag of chocolate chips in bed. I watched Danny Gonzalez videos for hours instead of preparing for my week.
And then, quietly, somewhere in the middle of all that, I had an anxiety attack. My chest hurt afterward, which naturally led my brain to its next logical conclusion: perhaps I was having a heart attack.
Perfect.
Day One
The next morning was my first day back at school for teachers — a week of professional development and classroom preparations. The ultimate transition for a teacher’s year.
I had not packed breakfast or lunch. My principal brought donuts, so I ate one for breakfast. And then another for lunch. Nutritionally speaking, it was not my finest work.
But I made it through the day.
I came home, watered my plants because apparently at least one living thing in this house needed responsible care, poured myself a glass of the cheapest wine Walmart had to offer, and got into bed.
Then I noticed a notification from MyMercy. My test results were in for the mammogram I had put off for two years. I opened the app expecting everything to be normal. There was a mass in one of my breasts, and I needed to go back for additional imaging.
My heart sank. I can’t endure this. This is the fourth school year since my rebuilding phase began that there’s been some kind of emergency the first week of school.
And then the other thing I had been afraid of happened too. My ex-husband, who had been threatening to stop paying alimony, stopped paying it.
So there I was. School starting. Debt. Legal worries. A medical callback. A chest still sore from anxiety. And ten bags of pinto beans in my freezer.
Not exactly the fresh start I envisioned.
And Then Someone Said Something in Training
During our back-to-school training this week, the trainer shared something I had probably heard before, but this time it landed differently:
“You have survived 100% of your hard days.”
And I thought about that. Because I have. Not perfectly. Not cleanly. That’s an important distinction.
I have not survived 100% of my hard days while faithfully following my morning and evening routines, exercise plan, and optimal health plan for a 52-year-old post-menopausal woman with thyroid issues.
Sometimes I survived them by ordering DoorDash or eating a box of ice cream sandwiches. Sometimes I survived them crying into my pillow and praying. Sometimes I survived by making a spreadsheet while listening to healing frequencies.
But I survived them.
And somewhere along the way, all those days I desperately wished I could skip were teaching me how to live through the next one.
Three years ago, this combination of events might have completely flattened me. Because three years ago, I didn’t know I could do this. I had spent most of my adult life married. Then suddenly I wasn’t. I had to figure out health insurance, retirement accounts, taxes, mortgages, home repairs, and all sorts of things I either hadn’t handled before or hadn’t handled alone. I had to learn how to mess things up and then figure out what to do next.
I would never have chosen those lessons. I would have preferred a book or a YouTube series guiding me through this transition.
Here’s the annoying thing about resilience, though: I don’t think you get it by reading about it. You get it by having things happen that you don’t think you can handle. And then handling them.
Badly, maybe. Messily. With a box of ice cream sandwiches.
But handling them.
Love Me Anyway
There is something else I’ve learned, too. I don’t have to wait until I’m doing all of this beautifully to like myself.
I can be scared about money, still be learning how to take care of myself well, be disliked by some people — and still love who I am.
When I was growing up, I had the sweetest little dog. She loved apple bread and curling herself into the crook of your legs. I never evaluated whether she had accomplished enough that week before deciding she deserved to be loved. And honestly, I thought it was cute that she carried a little extra weight because of her love for carbs.
I loved her because she was sweet. Because she was mine.
I think I am discovering that I’m allowed a little of that grace too.
I’m sweet. I love people. I try hard. I’ve also made mistakes, trusted people I shouldn’t have, spent money I wish I hadn’t, started things that didn’t work, and made elaborate plans that collapsed almost immediately.
I know there will be another hard day. Probably quite a few of them. There will also be really good ones.
The hard seasons will keep teaching me things I would rather not have to learn, but they’ll also keep showing me what I can survive. Maybe that’s what resilience really is — not getting so good at life that hard things stop happening, but slowly collecting enough evidence that when they do, you know you’ll figure out what comes next.
So maybe the goal isn’t to finally become the woman who has everything under control. Maybe it’s to trust the woman who has already gotten me through everything that wasn’t.
She has a 100% success rate so far.
