I’ve been trying to get into my new classroom all summer.
Every time I ask, I’m told “next week,” and every time I adjust my plans, “next week” slips into another delay.
It’s nobody’s fault, really, just one of those logistical things. But the part of me that finds comfort in early starts and clear timelines has been quietly unraveling. Impatient…not angry, just a little untethered.
It’s a lesson I keep learning: that my ideas about how things should go are often the very things that keep me from being where I am.
On our family vacation to Kauai, my worst moments—every single one—came from trying to control the experience. From gripping too tightly to an image in my head. And somehow my best moments happened in the in-between. In the surrender. In the soft middle ground of letting things unfold.
It’s like the universe keeps tapping me on the shoulder and whispering, You’re not in charge, sis. You gotta put that down.
A friend came by for a visit yesterday—someone who knows a thing or two about the terrain of old wounds and anxious minds. We sat around the table talking about the things we carry: family, history, unresolved chapters that still tug at the edges of our peace.
At one point, he made a point that’s stayed with me: Some things we can learn to release. But there’s other shit we’ll probably never truly be able to “let go”—it’s too woven into our past, our wiring.
Still, we have a choice. We can carry those things with us, or we can put them down. It’s possible to rest our arms without erasing the story.
I’ve been sitting quietly with that exact sentiment all summer:
- How much weight we carry out of habit instead of necessity.
- How often we confuse survival with obligation.
- How sometimes the bravest thing we can do is stop clinging to what’s already done.
Because I carry a lot. Old stories. Old patterns. The muscle memory of trying too hard. Of wanting to be understood before I even speak. Of bracing, just in case.
This weekend, we celebrated Jen’s birthday. Friday night we had dinner at a little place called Books and Records in Bankers Hill. It was one of those rare evenings when the universe feels generous. The staff made stuffed blue cheese olives just for her martini. They surprised us with champagne. They gave her a handwritten birthday card. Live jazz played. The food was other-worldly. For a few hours, time softened. Everything clicked into place without me forcing any of it.
The next day was her real celebration—exactly what she wanted: a bonfire on the bay with our village. I got there early to secure a firepit and hauled what felt like a small apartment’s worth of gear across the sand. Thank god her sister was there to help.
Later, Jen packed up her car with everything I forgot (which was… a lot). And by mid-afternoon, the beach was full of our people—chosen family, old friends, new friends—swirling in and out like the tide.
I made a deliciously slutty sangria* (recipe down below). The sun stayed out. The wind behaved. Jen’s sister got a spectacular Rice Krispie Treat cake (Jen’s absolute favorite). The bonfire burned clean and hot, we roasted hot dogs, the s’mores melted just right. We had a front row seat to the Sea World fireworks. It was one of those golden hours that stretches wider than the clock.
And even still—at one point in the afternoon, something in me curled up.
A new face arrived—someone truly lovely—and yet something inside me tightened when she walked up. I don’t believe she’s aware of it, but I know this person has a tangential connection to a past I don’t like to reread. A chapter I lived and tell with honesty—but one that has an alternate fan-fiction spinoff written by another narrator, passed off as gospel, and believed by people who have never heard my side.
And just like that, my old protector stirred.
I felt myself reaching for the armor: the readiness to perform, to manage impressions, to make sure this person liked me. So that if she’d happened to hear anything from the other side of that story—anything warped or whispery or wrong—she might think, That doesn’t align with the Jaime I met.
It’s an old reflex. And I spotted it quickly. I didn’t indulge it. But I felt the cost of resisting it—the weight of holding back that performance. The energy it still takes not to defend myself against a version of me I didn’t create.
I stayed soft. I stayed present. But I’d be lying if I said it was easy.
It never is, really—not when old stories still live in your body. Not when you’ve spent years trying to outrun the parts of you that someone else misunderstood.
Later that night, another friend—one of those wise souls who always asks the right questions—joined us at the bonfire. She’s made it a tradition to ask the same thing every year around her birthday, and since we hadn’t seen her since mine, she turned to both Jen and me and asked: What’s something you want to work on this year?
I didn’t even have to think.
I want to stop carrying things I don’t need anymore.
Stories I’ve outgrown. Roles I never chose. People’s perceptions that were never mine to manage.
I want to practice the art of setting things down—not with bitterness, not with fear, but with love. With relief. With trust that the space I clear will make room for something lighter. Something true.
And it hit me—that moment from earlier in the day, where I felt myself tense up wanting to slip into performance—that was the work, already beginning.
And it’s not just in moments like that. Ever since my principal sent out the Welcome Back to School letter to families, which included an announcement of my new teaching position, I’ve heard from a few old friends and acquaintences—people I knew from other lifetimes and chapters. They’re excited. They tell me their kids are nervous about English, but seeing my name gave them hope, maybe they’ll be in my class.
It’s so kind. And also… it presses right on that same bruise.
Because as much as I want to live in the now, there’s a part of me that still flinches. That wonders what happens when the kids of people who knew me in high school go home and report back to their parents. That reflex kicks in again—the one that wants to dazzle and deliver and disarm every possible doubt before it has a chance to form.
But that’s not the job. That’s not the work.
The work is to teach. To connect. To be who I am—not a performance, not a revision, not a polished-up version designed to be palatable. The work is to trust that who I am, as I am, is enough. Even when I’m carrying things I wish I’d already set down.
Even when I still feel the ache of wanting to be understood.
I’m learning that putting it down doesn’t mean it disappears. It just means I don’t have to keep it so close. I don’t have to make it my identity or drag it into every room I enter.
It means releasing the version of the story I wish people knew.
Letting go of the timeline I hoped would unfold.
Trusting that truth rises on its own time—even if I never see it surface.
So no, I’m still not in my classroom yet.
And yes, maybe there are people in the world who hold onto a version of me I didn’t write.
But that’s not mine to carry.
The sky still turned lavender and gold over the bay this weekend.
The tide came in, just like it always does.
And Jen, barefoot and beaming by firelight, lifted her glass to a new year around the sun.
None of it needed my grip.
None of it waited for me to feel fully healed.
And maybe that’s what I’m learning—again.
That control is not the same as care.
That presence is often quieter than performance.
That peace doesn’t come from fixing the story.
It comes from setting it down—lovingly, gently—and choosing to walk forward with empty hands and an open heart.
So that’s what I’m doing.
Not letting go.
Just putting it down.
Again.
And again.
And again.
*And with that, here’s the recipe for my dangerously delicious “Slutty Sangria” (def drink responsibly ;-))
- 1 box Costco Cabernet Sauvignon
- 3 cups Fireball whiskey
- 2 cups apple brandy
- 2 cups vanilla brandy
- 2 cups triple sec
- 3 cups orange juice (but a tangerine juice upgrade really slaps)
- 1 cup lime juice
- 1 batch brown sugar simple syrup
- 1 cup water + 1 cup brown sugar (boil for a few minutes; add as much or little as needed to cut tartness)
