Ash Wednesday Eve-Eve

I'm sure none of you ever get lost in the same place twice like I do, but, imagine for a second what it's like to be going in the wrong direction down a road, say, in Durham at around 9 o'clock at night. You've been down this wrong road before but you can't remember if you turned at the end of the road and found your way back or if you missed a turn a while ago. It's all really hazy because you found your way back only through the grace of God and some conveniently connecting streets. It was also dark the last time. It's an odd feeling, knowing you're wrong, being totally convinced that you're headed in the wrong direction and yet completely unsure as to whether you should keep pushing forward or turn completely around.

And I know that you all know that you should turn around. You know the way behind you. Maybe you can find the (unlabeled, I might add) street that you were supposed to turn on, the place that you've been trying to get to all along. You should just go back to somewhere where the directions still make sense and then see that place where you have to follow every step more carefully. Your internal sense of direction tells you that where you want to be is behind you, but, you know, when you don't have a GPS, map or co-pilot to confirm your suspicions, it's easy to hope that there's just a turn in the road somewhere that brings you back to where you're supposed to be, another miracle, maybe, that will lead you out of the intimidating side neighborhoods of night and on to the place where you're welcomed because you're expected.

Awkwardly enough, I get the same feeling when I think about teaching for the rest of my life that I do when I'm lost down a road I've been down before. It's like I know that I'm wrong but I'm hoping that it'll turn out to be right, or there'll be a sign or something. And I keep on getting all this encouraging feedback and then I think I'll feel like I'm quitting on something if I don't keep this up and that I'll be disappointing people who've been so supportive of me through everything and it's not fair because I do what I'm supposed to do, you know, and I can convince myself at least three ways from Sunday that I'm supposed to be teaching but I keep hearing this voice in the back of my head that doesn't want me to stay where I am because it knows that I'm lost, lost, lost.

You know, I found myself one Lent a couple years ago. Maybe if I lose the bits of me that I've picked up that don't help, maybe if I come back to where I've wanted to be with the good things I've gained, maybe I'll find myself again. Can't hurt to try.

I'd apologize for spending all my time writing about my future, but it is, you know, kinda my future. Funny how we all had this figured out two years ago.