entry fifty-seven

 Friday, June 13, 2025

    Ay, Dios mío!Today the school feels emptied of its own heartbeat. I slid into the building this morning on time and walked out on time—for once honoring my own limits. I felt liberated yet guilty for leaving on time because stepping away at 2:45 felt almost wrong after overextending myself this entire year. The hallways were hushed, the classrooms stripped bare. Each cardboard box I sealed carried more than supplies; it carried fragments of my purpose: sensory bins stacked, phonics materials tucked away, math manipulatives sorted into bins, and science experiment kits carefully labeled. 

    

    Ay, Dios mío! I should have felt relief—no more late-night IEP edits, no more phone calls about soiled clothes or missed reward points. Instead, I’m hollowed out by uncertainty. My general-ed colleagues swap class lists and room assignments with bright anticipation—plans already in motion. Meanwhile, my own position for next year hangs in limbo—a question mark that gnaws at me all summer. This uncertainty stinks in my nostrils like harsh cleaning solution left too long in an empty classroom. Where will I land come fall? Which new faces will I be entrusted to know and nurture? Will I be patched into a team that sees me, or shuffled into another corner where my strengths are overlooked? What if I am assigned to teach another grade level? 

    

    I built this year’s routines brick by careful brick: the morning check-in ritual that grounded anxious hearts, the sensory stations that whispered calm to racing minds, the gentle redirections that kept chaos from swallowing us whole. To imagine starting over—learning new colleagues’ rhythms, deciphering fresh IEPs, learning new curriculum—feels like standing on the edge of a ledge. I mourn the routines my co-teacher and I perfected during past this year—every corner of this wing, every quiet nook where our children whispered (or screamed) their needs. I remember that it’s in the unknown where growth sprouts. Just as my students learn to adapt when their world shifts, I must summon that same resilience. I close my eyes and breathe, recalling quieter moments of connection: a child’s shy smile after mastering a new sight word, the soft “thank you” when I handed over a favorite math manipulative. Those memories are my compass.

    

    Ay, Dios mío!—this pause between endings and beginnings is brutal. Beneath the sting of uncertainty, there’s a pulse of possibility. When the school doors reopen, I won’t just arrive - I will rebuild, again, brick by brick, knowing that even fresh walls can become home. Tonight—Ay, Dios mío!—I sit with the weight of this fragile pause, grieving the comfort of certainty even as I steel myself for an unknown next chapter.

End of the Line

The classroom drifts to sleep—
tables wiped down,
chairs huddled in tall columns,
a million stories shelved behind closet doors,
each one holding its breath
for voices that won’t return tomorrow.

Ay, Dios mío!—
the bell’s echo lingers in hollow halls,

a ghostly duet of “you did it”

and “hands are for helping”—

the year’s final anthem still clinging to the walls.
I lean against the doorframe,
shoulders sagging like a tired backpack,
wondering how many more times I can carry this weight.

Sunlight spills through dusty windows,
illuminating marker ghosts on the board—
half-erased lessons of patience and hope.
My boots, scuffed from ten thousand daily steps,
feel heavier today,
as if each footprint is stamped with “almost there.”

Ay nako—
I tally up the final checklists:
curriculum boxed,

shelves cleared,

manipulatives packed,
and unsent thank-you notes on my desk.
My calendar sighs beneath sticky reminders of summer—
a brief promise to rest before the next storm.

Ay, Dios mío!—
I taste relief and guilt in the same breath:
freedom to breathe, 

reclaim my evenings and weekends,
and shame that I’ve taught myself
to need permission to rest,

to feel uneasy in stillness,

to earn every exhale,

only after I’ve emptied myself into every task.

The silence feels suspicious—

like I’ve forgotten something,

like joy requires apology.

The hallway light dims slowly—

and I step forward,

not with certainty,

but with the quiet courage

of someone learning

that rest is not retreat,

and endings, too,

can be sacred beginnings.