Let Go of Who You've Been to Make Space for Who You Will Be

As my school year draws to a close, the notion of letting go is front and center on my mind. May is always a poignant month for a teacher, but this May has been particularly heavy as I prepare to leave the world of education behind and embark on a new career path. I will miss my students dearly and the person I have become under their tutelage, but as we march toward the last day of school, I am more and more ready to let go of who I have been in order to make space for who I will be. 

Accepting Change Is the Root of Letting Go and Making Space

The root of letting go is accepting change, and this hasn't always been my strong suit. When I was a kid, I couldn't stomach even the pettiest of changes, like my family members sitting in different seats at the dinner table or a new haircut. Any change, however small, felt like an attack on my very existence. I mourned everything and anything that fluctuated. 

It wasn't until the pandemic that I began to accept change as the universal constant. This was a painful process—I spent the bulk of the early days of the pandemic sobbing, not out of fear for my or anyone else's health but out of fear of the mind-boggling change around me; there wasn't a thing I felt I could rely upon to stay the same. This threatened my reality and the identity I had built for myself, and ultimately, I had to learn to forfeit control of both. The world was going to change, and I along with it. When I finally accepted this, my spirit relaxed—a stillness after a storm. 

Letting Go of Who You Are to Make Space for a New You

Now, as I walk into the final three days of the only life I know, I am calling upon this lesson again. I have loved who I have become these past five years, but I am willing to let go of that story because I know a new one is inevitable. Letting go and making space is the only way my journey can continue because living things don't stay the same.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't downright terrified. I am clueless as to what lies before me or the kind of person I will be required to become in order to navigate whatever that mystery is, but I trust that if I let go of what has been, I will become whatever I will be. If nothing else, this truth can be relied upon.