Moving Towards the Fire

    You cannot be more loyal to your fears than you are to your futures.

That line is still resonating with me. I heard it at the NCTE conference last week from author Brendan Kiely, when he was discussing his novel he co-authored with Jason Reynolds, All American Boys. I wrote it down immediately, almost as if I knew a blog would resurrect from the line. And somehow it did.

    I think about the fears I have had in my life. Some are fears I no longer experience like watching Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video when I was a kid and calculus class (Sorry, math teachers. Calculus never clicked with me. It was one of those classes that made me appreciate every paper I wrote in college as an English major, though). Other fears still exist: spiders. (There's irony there considering I am a UR graduate). I fear emojis will make us stop talking entirely and that I will disappoint the people important to me. Every time I hit the "publish" button on this blog, I am afraid--afraid that my words aren't good enough or that no one will read them. I fear dogs (I'm working on that one thanks to the dog walk sponsored by Atlee DECA and Emerging Leaders where I was able to pet over a dozen dogs).

My adult fears also consist of the Dorito shell at Taco Bell, my cell phone taking over my life, and raising kids in today's world. Bigotry, bullying, and racism never being eradicated truly frighten me as well.

     Yet, we can't survive by standing outside of what we fear. We need to move towards the fire. We have to take risks. We have to face what we are most afraid of in life. I'd like to be able to tell you that I did take the Dorito shell at Taco Bell head on and that it wasn't so bad. I'd love to be able to write that somehow I no longer care what other people think, that I don't care if I disappoint others. Yet, these fears are real in my life, extentions of who I am as a person. So what do I do? I start to move towards the fire. I've learned it's okay to be uncomfortable in situations. Sometimes it's better  not to do what is easiest but what feels right even if that is unsettling or fearful.

     This idea really resonated with me about twenty years ago when I was searching for my first teaching job. The summer after I graduated college, I had been on thirteen interviews. Somehow at each interview, I just didn't "fit the part." Frustrated, as it was now one week before school was to begin, I called the director of Human Resources in Henrico County. I had been told to regularly check in with the Human Resources Department so they would know my name. They knew my name. "Ms. Nagle," the director of Human Resources said, "I told you if I had a job for you, I would call you." She seemed exasperated by my call. And I made a choice in that moment. I could have said thank you and hung up the phone, but something told me not to do that. So, this shy, nonconfrontational want-to-be teacher did something brave and completely out of character.

     "I don't think you understand," I said. "This is not a 5 year commitment or something I will leave in the near future. Actually, this is not a job to me; it's a lifetime profession. More than anything in life, I really want to teach."  My hands were shaking and so was my voice. The speech was far from eloquent like that of Atticus Finch when he defended Tom Robinson on the stand in To Kill a Mockingbird, but it was sincere and honest and brave. She curtly said she understood and hung up the phone. About ten minutes later, I received a phone call from Human Resources. They had set up another interview for me. That next day, I landed my first teaching job. I put my future far ahead of my fears that day, and it changed my future and more importantly, my outlook on life.

     I think about what life would have been like had I not said what I did. Would I have given up on finding a teaching job? Think about all of the things I would have missed out on if that happened. I wouldn't have seen you sample 30 new books at our Book Tasting and respond to one another in reading those books.

I witness you stand your ground on a daily basis. To think of all of the intense moments I would have missed out on in my classroom.

One of the best things I witnessed this past month happened in my TOK classes, where you never shy away from making a difference; you collectively brought in 500 cans to feed the hungry this Thanksgiving.

While these might not encompass your fears, they demonstrate the idea of moving towards the fire, of living life in a way that matters. And to think I would have bypassed all of it had I not advocated for myself in that phone call twenty years ago. To think what would have happened had the director of Human Resources not known my name.

      In the country music song "Standing Outside the Fire," Garth Brooks croons, "Life is not tried; it is merely survived if you're standing outside the fire." Somehow that song lyric keeps popping into my head as I write this blog. So this is my challenge to you this month. Find one thing you are afraid of, and look that fear in the eye. Figure out a way of moving towards the fire. Do not let your fears control who you are. Find the words to be brave. And know if you're looking for me this month, I may not be working on conquering that Dorito shell yet, but I will take the first step at grappling with my fears as I move towards the fire and hit the "publish" button on this blog.