Today I submitted my official letter of resignation from Timpview High School, but I forgot to sign it. I marched down to the main office, letter folded crisply, neatly–decisively. I handed over my letter to Michelle, the kindly office secretary, with resolve and explained that it hadn’t been an easy choice, “but I really can’t pass an opportunity like this up.”
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| See that Peaceful Butterfly? That’s how my decision feels. |
This was partially true.
It had been an easy choice. It had been an easy choice on the plane home from New York last July. It had been an easy choice when I first phone Jeremy on the intersection of 114th and Amsterdam explaining that I might have an opportunity to go to Columbia for grad school. It had been a really easy choice when the letter of acceptance came, and an unbelievably easy choice when the scholarships and financial aid packages were proffered.
In my anxiety-ridden world, peace is so unbelievably hard to come by. So when I felt what can only been likened to the Lunesta butterfly of peace fluttering over me about this decision, I knew what I had to do. There was very little flapping or flailing. Columbia has been the right decision since its infancy, and the reaffirming, so seldom (dare I say nonchalant?) feeling of peace has confirmed it to me from day one. I’m going to Columbia.
The decision hasn’t stopped being the right one, but I admit to feeling some… kerfluffle when I wandered into my office and found the unsigned letter of resignation sitting innocuously on my chair in all its unsigned glory. It was like when Jim Carey tosses “The Mask” out his window, eager to be rid of it, only to find it lying neatly on his couch seconds after.
So I found a purple pen and I gave it my ugly little signature, but I hesitated privately but oh-so-theatrically before I permanently committed to the life transition. Had I a feather quill, I would have pursed it between my lips for a moment, and maybe even scratched my head.
Columbia is the absolute right decision for me, and that hasn’t changed, but Timpview has been unquestionably “right” for the past three years, and I’m going to miss it more than I thought I knew. As I again tendered my letter, freshly inked, I had to thrust it a little more forcefully into Michelle’s hands, and had to turn away before she could see the little tears clinging to my eyeliner.
I’ll miss my daily visits to the front office ladies. I’ll miss the extreme snark coming from my know-it-all AP students. I’ll miss the moment that apathy turns into enthusiasm in my juniors. I’ll miss our somewhat confrontational staff meetings with the personalities that paint pictures. I will miss Friday Pride. And while I promise you I will not miss the overly loud and terribly long announcements over the PA system, I will really, really miss the special breed of student that walks the halls of Timpview High School.
It’s been good to me.
Hopefully, as I return to studentdom, I’ll walk the halls of Teachers College with just a little bit of Timpview in my step.
Here’s to the future.
