Miscommunication
There’s honestly too much to share, too much breathless heartbreak in the world today, so I won’t pretend to be able to address even half. Where I find myself today is in a space to recognize the notion, if not the reality, of miscommunication, something so central to our daily ills I feel like I have to address it. It’s been my year to sit up and pay attention to this problem especially, because it’s multifaceted, and not what it looks like on the outside so often, it’s a wonder we’re all not disowning each other on a daily basis. I know that my pitfall comes with the expectations I was brought up to have, something ingrained in me even after years of being a full-on adult, and I find this tension in the way I parent. It’s forced me to come to terms with seeing others—my children, my students—as they really are. To meet them and accept them as they are, where they are, instead of as I wish them to be. When I don’t do this, and see in my mind only my sense of who they should be, t...