How a Few Trusted People and a Notebook Saved Me.

If you listen to the Toasted podcast, then you already know that I have very strong opinions about things. Jameson is the best Irish whiskey. English is the best of all academic disciplines. And numerology is…well…not for me. I want to share another strong opinion in this post: Community freaking matters.

For some of you this is not a revelation. But for others out there, you wonder if having a community has any impact on your life. And I get that. I was there, as doubtful as anyone; but, that all came to a halt one Friday in June 2021.

At that time, I was the elementary principal in a small rural NY school district. I had been there for 2.5 years, and prior to that I had served as a middle/high school assistant principal for 2.5 years in the same district.

My first 3 years in the district were quite wonderful. I had a great boss who supported innovation and new ideas, and I had great working relationships with my colleagues. The superintendent invited me to lead book studies for the administrative team, and the middle/high school principal and I pushed the district to explore innovative STEM opportunities for students–drones, AI, coding, etc. But during my last 2 years, things changed. My old boss retired, and a new boss took over. Politics changed. And…if we are being honest…my personal life had changed.

Three weeks into my position as a building principal, in July 2018, I found out that my wife was having an affair, and although we tried to patch things, they just fell apart and I asked for a divorce.

It was a tough process. In fact, at one point in a mediation meeting, the mediator asked my ex-wife if she felt like what she was asking for was fair to me, and she said: “Should I care about him?” All of this is not to slam my ex-wife, but to say that while I was learning a new, and stressful job, I was living in utter turmoil.

I tried, and I hope with some success, to shelter my staff from this as much as possible. But that wasn’t always easy because the building in which I was working was struggling internally. For example, when our students didn’t meet benchmarks, we “double dosed” them, meaning that we made them do the same work twice. Somehow, the idea was that if you exposed students who struggled with more of what they struggled with they would magically get better. I still don’t really understand the logic of this approach. The teachers didn’t either, and they were really upset about the way things were running. And, as the person in charge of the building, they came to me. I proposed a few ideas, even pushed a few things through, but in the end, my hands were tied because that system was run by another administrator–and, they were not interested in my take on what was going on in the building, even though it was my job to be the instructional leader.

I thought about these things as I drove to work that June morning, knowing that I was meeting with my boss first thing. But what really hit me was how we weren’t on the same page. I reflected on how he had put me on an improvement plan the prior year, citing examples of “deficiencies” that contradicted my annual evaluations and lacked evidence. I tried to discuss these with him, however, as an untenured administrator, you really don’t have any rights. I accepted the improvement plan and decided that I probably could do better than I was and worked my butt off trying to meet that plan. And I was successful. My boss signed off on the improvement plan during our “check-in” meeting the week prior to the fateful Friday meeting, and told me I had done a great job…in front of my union representative.

So, when I sat down at the table that Friday morning and he pushed a piece of paper over to me and said: “The board and I don’t feel like you’re a good fit. We want you to take this settlement and resign,” I was surprised. (Although, perhaps I shouldn’t have been because this was something of a pattern–not following through on promises and/or over promising.) I was also not willing to resign. I had worked hard, and I wasn’t going to quit on my colleagues, my staff or my students. I did what any person in my position would do. I asked for some time to review the document, I drove to my parents’ house, and I poured a giant gin and tonic. After a long conversation with my parents, I decided that I would fight what I could–which I knew wasn’t much–and I’d let the district terminate me.

And they did. I had my integrity. But, I was terminated.

It’s funny, actually, because I thought that I was taking the moral high ground by preserving my name and allowing the district to make the decision to fire me. But, I didn’t sleep better. In fact, I only got more angry that the system would so willingly allow a district to make a decision that was not founded on facts, but on perceptions. It was unjust and unfair.

No job.

Child support due.

Rent.

Utilities.

To recap, in the space of two years, my marriage and career had utterly crumbled. I was left bruised emotionally and felt totally directionless in my career. I applied to hundreds of administrative jobs but with a termination on my record, there wasn’t much I could do. I got a couple of interviews, but no offers.

It sucked. Badly.

Around this time, which was easily the lowest point of my life, I learned a valuable lesson: I could not do it on my own. I needed help. The problem was that I didn’t feel comfortable talking to others about any of this because it was embarrassing and made me look like a total fool. So, I started with a therapist. We talked about everything, and I learned about gaslighting, narcissism and the fact that “you are not your emotions.” I realized that some of what I had experienced was out of my control and that to harbor anger and contempt would be harmful in the long run.

A friend who I had also confided in around this time turned me on to the book, Artist’s Way (Listen to: Toasted Tuesday), and I began to write every day and to take myself on Artist Dates. And I realized that there was a lot more to life than just a job or a marriage. I started to see writing as meditation, and then I actually started to get interested in meditating. I’d sit and meditate using Ten Percent Happier and Calm. Over time, I came to realize that Things, like pages in a notebook, come and go and we keep writing and living through them.

And then I began to talk to Margie about my “shit.” We had met at a regional principal meeting, and we worked as elementary principals in neighboring districts for a couple of years; so, I knew her a little but not all that well. For some reason in one of our conversations, I told her about my marriage and about my job, how I felt like everything was falling apart, and how I just wanted to give up and move away. She listened and shared her story and over the next couple of years we exchanged quotes and books, and before I knew it the pain had stopped and the learning had begun.

In therapy, The Artist’s Way, and Margie, I had found my community. It wasn’t a huge support group of people, but a few trusted people and a notebook that saved me from falling deeply into depression. I needed a community and I found it, but, in retrospect, I think that the word community meant something more grandiose than it turned out to be. I didn’t need hundreds of friends, a giant support group, or Facebook to tell me that everything was going to be okay. I needed a few people and a lot of pieces of paper to realize for myself that failing is learning.

If you are going through something difficult, please find your way to a community. And my definition of community is any situation in which you can freely explore your own thoughts, reflect on your ideas, and get feedback from a trusted voice. I think, given all I’ve learned so far, the most important part is that you have a community that works for you. If you are a person who needs permission: Find a community that supports you in whatever way you need. It doesn’t have to look like the ones on TV or on social media–it just has to help you process your situation in a healthy, productive way.

So…Go…find some people!

Cheers!