Adulthood

I watch the last kid leave the room and walk to my table in the back of the room. I pick up my coffee mug and work on finishing my first cup of coffee for the day. Who cares if I've been working on it since 7:30?

I look around my classroom, put up one forgotten chair, stack my books up, and look around again. And I smile. I grab my keys and my coffee cup again, and I'm off to a meeting.

Along the way, I realize that this is it. This is the last week and a half of being here. And I'm so excited to graduate, to be done, to have my career, but it is so hard to think of leaving here. It has truly been incredible. This place will always, always be special to me -- another home.

And the meeting and a night with some of the other teachers from school made me really excited for settling in somewhere, setting down roots and making friends, having a new phase in my life.

Those kids in my classroom look up at me and see an adult. And sometimes, in moments like this afternoon held, I see one, too.

~"Doing all the tricky little things it takes to grow up, step by step..." [-Sylvia Plath]~