I Am Broken

In my last post, Be Full of Grace, I asked that everyone act with grace toward yourself and others because we have all been broken by this pandemic:

 We are not out of this pandemic yet and we are all still coping with the trauma of upheavals to our personal lives as well as the world. We must resist the urge to return to life as usual in the before times. That previous pace was not healthy and now we are not the same and the world is not the same. Everyone and every system has sustained damage. 

Be Full of Grace

Last week I stepped away from work, and even writing, to travel with my husband and son to Upstate New York where my husband and I grew up. While the impetus for our visit was tragic, the death of a family member, the trip meant that our little family spent a lot of time together for the first time since the Spring 2020 lockdown and we got to see family members we hadn’t seen in years as well as meet new additions to our extended family. It was interesting to run into old friends and visit old haunts. Of course all that social interaction combined with a busy schedule was a bit much for me as the pandemic has worn me down in so many ways (see Be Full of Grace for full details). However, I had an epiphany today that it is humans and the systems they uphold that has broken me. Despite taking a week away from my work I decided on our trip back home that I was not yet ready to begin work. I’m not currently under contract and so I decided to spend this week focused on self care which for me meant focusing on poetry and working on my blogs as well as practicing yoga. Then Wednesday I was overwhelmed by a series of text messages and emails which led me to spend the day crying off and on. This tells me that I was right to seek to spend this time focused on things that make me happy and help me heal. This also tells me about the level of toxicity present in my work. It shouldn’t be this hard to take some time away from work when I’m not under contract.

My husband’s suggestion was to quit my work with the National Writing Project as that is the work that dominates so much of my summer. That is certainly something I need to think about as I work to create a more sustainable work life moving forward, but I hope my plan does not involve anything so drastic. I believe my National Writing Project work gives me more than I give to it, but I am certain that I need to revisit the time and priority of that work. Just because you love something doesn’t mean that it loves you back with the same intensity. Part of my new grace-focused lifestyle will be resisting the urge to recklessly spend my limited resources on anything – even things I love. Even though the start of my new semester is more than three weeks away and I am not under contract until Aug. 9, I am starting to accept the fact that I made a terrible mistake not prioritizing my healing this summer and that I must do better this fall or I will absolutely not be able to do this work – any of this work.

Broken Systems

Of course I am hampered in this process of addressing my trauma and prioritizing self care by many factors beyond my control. I am furious at the leadership and citizenry of this country that have allowed this pandemic to spiral out of control yet again. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the simple fact is that it did not have to be this way in America. We have the resources and the knowledge to control this virus and the risk it poses to most people, but right now I can’t be certain how risky stepping foot back in a classroom this fall will be for me. I am fully vaccinated (of House Moderna) but in Kentucky only 44% of the total population is fully vaccinated with 51% receiving at least one dose. Crucial for me is the 18-29 age group where the rate is 36%. So chances are that two-thirds of my students are unvaccinated. My institution is doing no more than “encouraging” students vaccinate and there are no mask or social distancing requirements. Maybe conditions or policies will change before classes start in less than a month, but I am furious that risk management has to be a factor in my class planning as well as my daily life. Risk for myself and risk for my students. How do I plan a course that best serves my students’ growth and development as writers while not increasing our risk because we are all breathing the same air in a windowless classroom? I am furious that everything is business as usual except for the fact we are doing it all while still in the midst of a pandemic and no accommodations have been made for the trauma we suffered and continue to suffer.

While schools and universities cannot be blamed for the larger societal problem of pandemic denial (well maybe a little as they have clearly failed to prioritize critical thinking), these institutions absolutely can be blamed for continuing to organize education as a one-size-fits-all proposition that confuses seat time with pedagogy. Administrators and the political systems that drive them can absolutely be blamed for fighting to maintain a status quo that adequately serves only a few and actively harms many. The only learning loss I want to discuss is the missed opportunity to break the stranglehold that testing, standardization, and efficiency have on education P-16 by rethinking the goals of education and supporting multiple pathways to reach those goals. If education systems weren’t so focused on meeting arbitrary seat time numbers for all students we could have done so much more to meet students where they needed to be met during this pandemic. This has always been true, but the pandemic highlighted the inequities of our education system in the United States and the only concern of most administrators and the political systems they serve is to rush back to a “normal” that was unsustainable before the pandemic.

We also cannot overlook the faults in our American culture. I want to believe in the basic goodness of most humans and some days I still encounter enough people to maintain that belief, but when I look at our leadership in Washington, D.C., or Frankfort, Kentucky, it is a lot harder to believe that people are essentially good and care about the community as well as themselves. But I do not want to confuse “leaders” with people. The United States government and political structure is broken and “leadership” has no will to attend to that problem. In fact, many are determined to break it permanently. The gaping leadership vacuum in our country has led many people astray, some of whom I believe are still good people in their heart. Other good people are lashing out in their brokenness (this pandemic has caused so much trauma and compounded existing trauma) in many terrible ways that cause harm to themselves and others. Both the lashing out and the leadership vacuum have always been true throughout humanity’s history. I fear that we are rapidly approaching a day of reckoning in America where we will either fight our way through this perfect storm to a new and better future or this American experiment will fail. Some days I am hopeful about the future, because I believe in my students and the good people doing good work.

My Self-Care

Fixing all those broken systems is not in my power. I can only do the things that are within my power. I got my vaccine and advocate that others do so as well. I will start wearing a mask again – especially when attending group gatherings indoors (like teaching). I will set up my classes to minimize risk to myself and my students while still supporting them as humans and learners and writers. I will vote and advocate that others do so as well – especially voting with care for others in mind. Last, and certainly not least, I will once again focus on values with my students. I know our focus on personal values meant so much to my students and to me during our last pandemic year and in addition to its value for community, learning, and writing – I continue to believe that focusing on personal values can be our way forward for our country.

Personally, I have also set myself some important new priorities and will resist the destructive forces at play in my personal and professional life that misdirect me from them. Even more important I am going to try using a daily planner/journal to help me track my emotional state and triggers, plan and prioritize my work and life as well as where I spend my limited time/energy, and keep me accountable on my four priorities: Health, Heart, Hope, Home. Health because that is the foundation for everything else – especially my resilience. I have taken up yoga in hopes that it will help with my stress. I know I always feel better after even a short practice. Heart is simply engaging in something that makes me happy every day. Not simply a distraction or escape but consciously choosing something that feeds my heart and soul – such as reading/writing poetry. Hope is something productive for my life today or my dream future – so blogging or reading a book about writing or learning something new. Home is something straightforward to improve my life at home. Perhaps taking care of some clutter or doing a deep clean in one area or cooking a meal that is new to us. On a busy day I may only be able to give one hour to these four priorities, but I also know that regular practice can quickly add up and I think attending to these priorities will help me keep my balance in what I suspect will be another rocky year in America.

I apologize for writing such a long post and congratulate you for sticking with it if you made it this far. Hugs if my struggles resonate with you. Clearly I had a lot bottled up because I haven’t blogged regularly for months. Looking at my blog schedule for 2021 is one of the clearest indicators of my struggles in 2021. Blogging is important to me on so many levels and the fact that this is only my 15th post this year should be a red flag. Hopefully this post and my last will exorcise my demons so I can get back on track with my blogging. Has the pandemic broken you? How are you coping? What self-care strategies do you deploy to heal your brokenness?

Image by Cao Hoang from Pixabay. I chose this image because it speaks to the perilous nature of balance. Rising water or simply debris caught up in the rush could undo the carefully balanced stack of stones. A good lesson there.

Author: Deanna Mascle
#TeachingWriting and leading #NWP site @ Morehead State (KY): Passionate about #AuthenticWriting, #DeeperLearning, #PBL, #Ungrading, and #HyperDocs.

3 thoughts on “I Am Broken

  1. Deanna,

    I’m sorry so much is broken, and that you are skittering … I am sure I don’t know the entire picture and all the context. I only write you here as a fellow writing friend and NWP colleague who has written with you as shared poets and CLMOOCers, etc.

    This jumped out at me —>

    “Just because you love something doesn’t mean that it loves you back with the same intensity. ”

    In the end, we have to pay most attention to ourselves, our families …

    You ask about us, too (that’s so you): I was worn down by the Pandemic as a classroom teacher by the end of the school year, after holding it all together for most of it — through so many changes and anxieties — and am only now starting to settle back to myself. And even then, not quite, you know? I found writing and reading, and being close to my family and close to nature, to be most helpful. Staying active helped.

    I hope you find healing from the broken space.

    Sincerely,
    Kevin

    1. Thanks so much, Kevin. I am finding my way back. Every day a little better and I need to resist that human tendency to backslide.

  2. I truly believe that practicing yoga saves my life-mentally and physically. I use yoga breathing regularly to take breaks in my days–which are not as overloaded as yours by a long shot. Your writing always give me new perspectives and ideas to ponder-thanks. lisa

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