Letter to My First-Year Self — Tziona Chernoff
Hey Tziona,
Three years ago, when mom and dad left your dorm room and you cried you thought that was your rock bottom. How silly.
Sadly there will be more rock bottoms for the next three years. You are going to learn that you are not always perfect, and that school will not always be easy. As you work hard to be the best you can be, you begin to understand that your best may not just be in academic achievement. You will have to learn your best in the way you treat others, in the way your students learn with you, and in the way you connect to your Judaism.
While you are sitting at the bottom you will meet some of the best friends you have ever had. You will be able to see that it is okay to let go of those who do not add to your life, and to add people to your life that you did not expect. As you sit on the floor of your apartment building furniture with a girl you met in an Education class and cry because the world around you keeps changing, you will begin to accept that sometimes you need to allow things to change.
However with those rock bottoms comes some of the best moments as well. You will sing Taylor Swift and eat mac and cheese at midnight, you will live with two different people who both become some of your best friends, and you will go to Paris to see more art than you can imagine. You will work so hard and laugh almost as much.
You will become a teacher. You will look at your students’ faces and understand that they are the most important people in your life. They will make you laugh and cry, they will inspire you to be better than you ever realized you could be, and you will be so proud you chose this career path. The future classroom you imagine is not so far away, and within a year you will have the first teaching moment that will change your life.
You will graduate early, because you learned that not every decision is an easy one. As you sit and watch the Lord of the Ring Trilogy and accept the nerd you have become you will learn to not feel shame for the nerd you have become.
Yet with all these changes you are still so you. Overalls and Flannels are on rotation in your closet, you crochet more than any twenty year old you know, shabbos meals will be the highlight of your week, and crocs are still the best footwear. Everytime you are sad you watch the DUFF and He is Just Not That Into You, and you continue to try and be perfect. I love you, for who you were and who you will be.
You are so much more than you believe.
Tziona Chernoff
