Daily Journal #92 - Vulnerability

I oftentimes forget that (for the most part) the people I interact with on a daily basis - my current students - don't know me...at all.  Some of them have peered into my soul and I try to avoid eye contact at times with them because I just know they can SEE me (and read my mind), but most of the 180 souls I encounter in Room 853 only know their version/story of me.

Most don't know the journey I have taken the past 365 days.  The current seniors do, though, because they saw it as it happened.  Most don't know about the day I heard a former student had died and how I lost it when someone told me during passing period.  Most don't know about the scariest day in my classroom that involved paramedics and stretchers.  Most don't know about the surprise baby shower that my AVID kids threw me and how the room was filled with absolute love - the love growing in my belly and the love among the group of kids who wouldn't even let me carry my purse because of "the baby" and always escorted me to my car "just in case".  Most just don't know because it's easier not to know, not to get attached, not to get hurt.

I have my favorite Cheryl Strayed quote written on a little chalkboard near my desk that reads, "Be brave enough to break your own heart."

Talk about a misread quote.

It doesn't mean to go looking for heartache or pain or to be a doormat in someone else's drama.  It means to walk into your fears, throw open your arms, and just be.

Being vulnerable is not about the byproduct.  It is not about getting hurt or not getting hurt.  It's not even about other people.  It's about me and it's about you.  It's about living wholeheartedly as Brene Brown would say.  

I choose vulnerability for mySelf, not anyone else.

I choose vulnerability because it opens up my heart to love and joy.  And I don't know anybody who couldn't use more of that.

Do I get hurt?  Every frickin' day.

But how people react to me is their business - good or bad.  And I wouldn't trade any of the hurt I have experienced for a safe, guarded heart.

I love deeply, fully, and presently.  And that has given me a world I never could have imagined when I was the age of my current students.

I wish everyone the kind of love I have.  I think the world would be a better place.