You Hold Everything Together. Who Is Holding You?

Susan did more than just coach me. She guided me with major post secondary and advanced degree decisions. She helped me with major personal events in my life, as well. She encouraged me to continue on with my goals, even in difficult times and more importantly helped me truly think before making decisions based on my long and short term goals rather than deciding with emotions. I was able to go forward knowing what I need to do versus what I want to do.

I came to Susan half convinced I needed to quit teaching. Nineteen years in, and I was grading essays in the car line at my own kids' school, answering parent emails at 10:40 at night, and saying yes to every committee because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't. I told her all of that in our first call and she didn't rush to fix it. She just let me finish. I realized nobody had let me finish a sentence about myself in years.

She never once told me to quit. What she did was ask me who I was when I wasn't being useful, and I could not answer. That question kept me up for a week. She'd been in a classroom for 25 years herself, so when she said the job would take everything you offered it and never once say thank you, I believed her.

This year I leave at 4:10. I said no to sponsoring yearbook and my principal survived it. I still love my kids and I still work hard. I just stopped disappearing into it. My daughter said last month that I seem like I'm actually here now. That's the whole thing.

After my dad passed I became the one who handled everything for my mother. It made sense. I am a surgical nurse. Appointments, the pharmacy, the house, her moods, my brother's excuses. I was also working full time and raising two teenagers. When a friend gave me Susan's name I almost didn't call, because calling would mean admitting I couldn't do it all, and admitting that felt like failing my mom.

In our second session Susan asked me what I needed, and I started listing what my mother needed. She stopped me, gently, and asked again. I cried for most of the rest of that hour. She didn't flinch and she didn't get sentimental about it either. She just waited until I could hear myself.

Six months later I have respite care two afternoons a week, my brother drives Mom to her Thursday appointments, and I go to a yoga class where nobody needs anything from me. The strange part is that my mother is better cared for now than when I was doing it all. Susan would say that's not strange at all. She has this way of being on your side without ever letting you off the hook, and I think that's why it worked when nothing else had.

I was the person everyone came to. I was on the Aspiring Leaders, Assistant principal track, instructional coach, the one who could smooth over any parent meeting and cover any class. I was proud of that, and it was also killing me quietly. Nobody knew because being fine was my whole reputation.

Susan saw through it in about fifteen minutes. Her experience of a few decades in public education helped me know she's been there before. She didn't call me out. She told me a little of her own story, the rebuilding she'd done in her own life, and I understood she wasn't going to be impressed by how much I could carry. That was new for me. Every mentor I'd ever had rewarded the carrying.

The work we did was slow and specific. She'd hand something back to me and say, you already know the answer, and she was right often enough that I started trusting myself again. This spring I withdrew my application for the AP job I'd been chasing for four years, because for the first time I could tell the difference between what I wanted and what would look good. I sleep now. I'm sharper at work with fewer hours in it. And when I say no, I don't spend the next three days explaining myself.