I have some amazing trees in my yard. All summer long they keep me shaded and house hundreds of birds---literally. But then fall comes and I find myself knee deep in leaves.

I know the calendar says it's December, but it was almost 80 today. I finally had a perfect excuse to get out there and rake up millions (ok, so it was probably only a hundred thousand!) of leaves.

Raking leaves is not my favorite activity. In fact, I keep thinking today as blisters grew under my gloves that one day robots would probably do it for me.

And then I thought about how much robots will probably cost and I kept raking.

But outside, in the air, surrounded by visual reminders of the season, I found myself appreciating the work.

Thanks to my efforts, my grass won't die. I won't fear grabbing a lizard when I reach down to get the paper and my house is no longer the only one in the neighborhood that looks like something out of a Ace Hardware commercial.

Nature reminds us that there is a cycle to things...that nothing is forever, and that change is ever present.

One day before I know it, I will walk up the steps and find small, green buds on the ends of all the branches and small blooms will exist where now are only dead stems.

I love the idea of starting over.

Of being made new.

Of having a chance to "clean the slate" without anyone remembering what I did or didn't do in the past.

Nature in that way is very forgiving.

As I bring another year to a close, I find myself wanting, in many ways, to start over.

New goals.

New experiences.

A new commitment to move forward no matter how many things in my life seem to tether me to the past.

Today, I was a part of the life cycle. After months of watering the lawn at midnight and enjoying the shade that was the result, I now had a chance to "clean up" what was in anticipation of what is to come.

It's never to soon to start new.

Today, I feel like I turned over a new leaf.

Thousands and thousands of them.

tags: acceptance, forgiveness, fresh start, nature, new beginnings

One night last week I fell asleep at 5:30 in the evening and slept straight through until the next morning. My dreams were all nightmares: deep-seated fears finally brought to the sub-conscious. In my dreams, it was the first day of school. My classes had 50 kids in them. None of them had materials. I had no books. I'd made no lesson plans. I couldn't get the kids organized and that was the day my administrator walked in to administer my annual evaluation. All of the fears and anxieties I had about starting a new school year manifested themselves in a series of vignettes in which I was basically fed to the wolves. My career was in question and I was left to wonder if I really had what it took to try and change kids' lives one more time.

Dreams are funny things. Most of the time mine are vague and non-descript. People rarely have faces, although I know who they are. But in my "pre-school" dreams, everything is detailed. I can feel textures, see facial expressions, distinguish colors. People appear three-dimensional. Their voices are clear and diverse.

These dreams are the best for me. It's like my mind has finally purged itself of worry. By dealing with it in my dreams, I am no longer left to deal with it in real life. These dreams are exhausting, but I wake feeling rejuvinated and my mind is clear.

Today was the first day of school. All of the things I'd worried about didn't happen.

In fact, as usual, my kids were wonderful.

I don't know what makes me anxious about what I do. Maybe I know oh so well how critically important my role is in these kids' development.

I don't want to let them down.

I don't want to give them a chance to give up on themselves.

And so I worry.

I worry myself sick about doing enough and being the person they need me to be.

My payback?

Seeing them graduate, one at a time, year after year, knowing I had a small part to play in their success.

But the education system is getting more stringent. A great deal of the creative energy and fun I felt for my job is rapidly being taken away by micro-management and government bureaucracy.

To stay optimistic in the light of this reality can be a challenge.

But today was a red-letter day. Today, I stood before more than 150 kids and explained to them my expectations and offered them assurances that each one of them could reach them.

They listened and now I believe we have an understanding with each other.

I love my job.

I love my kids.

I love how my life makes sense when I'm at school learning and growing. And I'm so glad that all of my concerns were unfounded. I always have to worry if "this" will be the year that will break me, and I'm happy to say I think it's missed me one more time.

tags: achivement, expectations, new beginnings, optimism, school, success

Each time I return to Washington, I drive by my childhood home. In my mind's eye, I see it as it once was: new, clean, safe, surrounded by trees and bushes my parents spent hours planting.

But as you can imagine, time has truly changed this reality.

Homes that were once new are now old and quickly becoming delapidated from lack of care and upkeep. Trees and bushes that were once part of a master-planned yard and now overgrown and an eyesore. The cement is cracked, the paint is chipped, the mailbox rusted and the cauldesac I used to bike around over and over again is now litered with trash and empty beer cans.

The reality no longer matches the memory.

When we left Washington, it was time to move on. Circumstances dictated a move and even though it was one none of us chose, it was infinitely important in the shaping of who each of us, my mom, younger brothers and I, would become.

I get a lot of e-mails asking me when I knew I was ready to make a change, leave my husband and stop self-injuring. (those aren't connected!)

The answer?

Never.

Change isn't something I chose. Rather, I feel like it chose me. Left to my own devices, the decisions I was making were negative and self-destructive. My body was breaking down, my marriage was falling apart, I was no longer happy with who I was.

The only way I could start my life over again was to change.

My body demanded I make a change because it wasn't working right anymore. My mind demanded I make a change because I was emotionally such a wreck that I wasn't able to deal with things the way I should have been; my emotional balance was way off and demanded to righted. My marriage demanded I make a change because the way it was hurt not only myself, but my husband. To save us both, sacrifices had to be made.

Change is scary but necessary.

In my youth, things were new, untainted by life experiences or pessimism.

But I got older, life presented a new reality. In order to fit into it, I had to make some changes, otherwise it would move on without me.

Sometimes we choose change: a new job, a new hobby, a new relationship, birth of a child.

But other times change chooses us: illness, divorce, financial difficulties, death of a family member.

Each of these instances calls us to change a little of who we are. We survive these changes because we adapt.

And, in each of these changes, we are new, untainted, fresh.

Change is rebirth. It allows us to re-discover how strong and resourceful we are.

No one likes it, but once the change happens, we appreciate it.

I think about my old house in Washington, and it's fitting that it has changed so dramatically. Just as my family fell apart in it, so did the house. I find great symbolism there.

Don't be afraid of change. The opportunities for greatest growth often present themselves as obstacles.

tags: change, identity, new beginnings, opportunity, sense of self

The phoenix is a mythological creature that symbolizes new growth and coming back from nothingness. Out of ashes arose this incredible creature, full of new life and new possibilities.

Believe it or not, each time I look out into my yard, I think of the phoenix.

When I moved in, my back yard was a mass of dirt. There wasn't one stick, one weed, one recognizable form of life.

But since I started feeding the birds, their scattered seeds have fertilized my sea of dirt. And now when I look outside, my yard is a buzzcut of green sprouts...all different shapes and sizes.

On the one hand, I want to go out and pull out the weeds. Weeds aren't a lawn.

But on the other, something is growing. Birds are coming, squirrels are playing in my trees. I have to wonder what I will gain by tearing up what has started to grow.

I want a lawn. Ultimately I will have to till the soil and re-plant my grass seeds. But for the moment, there are small patches of green that have grown in an area my landlord said was next to impossible.

I like the word impossible. It instills a challenge, a "just you wait and see" attitude.

I've been called impossible from time to time. And like my yard, felt barren and unable to bloom.

But it looks like we've taken what we were given and bloomed anyway.

So there!

tags: discipline, faith, new beginnings, opportunity, overcoming obstacles

I had a weird experience today. I was looking on a hospital website for volunteer opportunities over the summer. I noticed the "babies" page and there are names and pictures of babies born each day. I scrolled down and clicked on a baby name I liked...one I might have chosen had I been a mother.

The picture of the baby popped up and the parents names were listed. The mother's name was Vanessa and the father's name was that of my ex-husband.

This could have been my baby...a different time, a different place.

I've thought a lot about "the road not taken" lately. I'll be turning a year older soon and I can't help but wonder what if.

I have always known I didn't want kids because I thought for sure I'd manage to screw them up in some way...pass the poison that runs through my family tree on to them and I never wanted that.

But as the window of opportunity nears closing forever, I find myself wondering what kind of mother I would be.

This picture today intrigued me.

Here are two people with names I recognize, have fond memories associated with and together they created a life.

I too could have created a life, decided not to and now I'm starting to wonder.

Is it wrong to think that just because I came from an abusive background that somehow I might make a mess of things?

Is it possible to be successful in a career and be a good mother?

What if I projected all of my insecurities and perfectionism on a to perfect and unmarred life?

But what if I were a wonderful mother?

I have so much love to give and so many exciting things to show a child. I love to learn and have spent my whole life helping others to learn as well.

In some ways I think I would be a great mother.

In others, I'm not convinced.

I thought I had this all settled, but the questions linger. The picture today and the names on the screen, together, helped me to see that somewhere, a life was created out of a union I never thought was fertile.

This is ridiculous, I tell myself. I'm not the Vanessa and the man isn't XX, so the kid on the computer isn't mine.

But it could be.

A different time. A different place.

I'm a different person now. I have moved beyond some of the insecurities that held me back in the past.

But what does that mean exactly?

Who am I called to be?

I think I'm still figuring that out.

tags: birth, faith, healing, hope, marriage, new beginnings, recovery

When I got up this morning, my bread bag had a hole in it and several pieces of bread were littered with teethmarks. Even though I keep a clean house, it appeared that in light of the cold weather, I had a small, furry visitor.

I laid some traps before I went to work, praying that somehow, some way, the mouse would see them, get the hint, wait by the door for me to get home, then skirt out before I saw him. That way I wouldn't have murder on my conscious. No such luck. When I walked in the door, I heard a feverish scratching sound and a nice, plump gray mouse was desperately trying to free himself from the glue trap.

However, the trap was laid near a small appliance. Somehow the mouse had straddled the chord to the appliance and then found himself firmly stuck to the trap. I could not free the chord of the appliance without literally ripping off the mouse's feet.

I couldn't do it.

Crying, I took the trap and the appliance outside and that's where it sits. I called a friend to come over and "take care of it" and now I'm waiting.

So is the mouse.

He has to know he is going to die and that fact troubles me deeply. What must it be like to know that you were trapped, forever. We've all heard stories about mountain climbers who faced this fate and literally cut off their own arm with a pen knife.

But the mouse doesn't have a knife with which he could extricate himself and so he lays there, waiting.

It sounds ridiculous to cry over a mouse, but this has brought something up within me that I cannot explain. It isn't his fault he was in my house, eating my food, trying to stay warm.

But he gave his life for it.

How I wish he had positioned himself differently! Then I could have put him in a ziploc, sealed it, and he would have gone to sleep. Death seems better to me when it's quick and quiet.

I can't say painless, because is there ever such a thing?

Not when you're stuck to a glue trap.

I hope that when I die I don't know it. I hope I have the best day of my life, have made peace with everyone in my life, go to sleep and never wake up. I never want to be burned alive or eaten by sharks or tortured. And I would never want to be in a position where I could see death coming for me and just sit there, waiting.

I'm so sorry the mouse had to die. Had I been able to catch him and set him free somewhere else, I would have.

So many times in my life I've felt trapped. It takes only a little mouse on a glue pit to make me see how free I've always been.

tags: death, freedom, hope, life, new beginnings, pain

The end of the school year always marks a period of mourning for me. After ten years in the classroom, you'd think I was used to losing my kids after nine months of intense bonding, but I'm not. Because I do not have children of my own, my students are my children. I have prayed over them, cried over them, rejoiced with them and nurtured them through some of the most difficult decisions of their lives. It never ceases to amaze me that over the course of nine months, I can develop a bond with more than 120 people. I get used to seeing them everyday, and once that time is over, my heart grieves the loss.

I am a very positive person and work relentlessly to build up my student's self-esteem. I try to instill a sense of purpose within them, and as a result, many students who initially had no desire to go on to college, will indeed go and many of them with scholarships.

This is my purpose in life. It is by far one of the most time consuming and emotionally draining jobs on the planet, but I love it.

This week will mark the end of another school year. Final exams will have come and gone, writing folders will be put away, dictionaries placed into storage for the summer months and my red pens laid down for a temporary rest. In a flurry of "spring cleaning", I will get rid of extra copies, old books and notes. I will clean out my filing cabinets in order to make room for a new year of discoveries, less than 8 weeks away.

The end of the school year makes me sad, yet it energizes me. There is something refreshing about going through old things, throwing things away and starting with a clean slate.

Ironically enough, I find myself going through the same ritual each evening at home. I am in the process of moving and after almost eleven years of being in the same place, forcing myself to branch out and transplant myself somewhere new. I am longing for personal growth and moving will allow me to meet new people, learn to navigate new neighborhoods and establish new relationships with individuals I have just met.

It is scary and exciting at the same time.

In going through my belongings, I am revisiting parts of my past. I have discovered old letters, photographs, awards and personal effects that I had either forgotten about or believed were lost forever. To find them again after so many years has been a sentimental experience. As I find each item I am forced to decide if I will carry it with me into this new stage in my life, donate it to those less fortunate or throw it away completely. It sounds weird, but this decision has been a heart-wrenching one at times.

As someone who loves control, change isn't something I seek out. And yet my heart has been calling for something new for many months now. In less than three weeks I will find myself in a new home. I will be surrounded by new neighbors and new things.

I am looking forward to this next chapter which will begin with a new group of students and more opportunities for personal growth and awareness. It is never too late to make a change in life. Sometimes change find us and at others times, we must seek it out.

I am learning to appreciate change and all of the new beginnings it provides.

tags: change, control, growth, new beginnings, relationships