Prompt: Write about something you want to linger in.
The prompt for today is: Write about something you want to linger in.
I think what I want to linger in is this place I’m in right now — this space of calm.
It feels like I’ve been given time to come to a better understanding of where I’m at.
For the last few years, work has been a lot. Mostly work, really. Teaching hasn’t felt the way it once did. There was a point, when I first started, when I felt like I had a real place in it — a real purpose. I was excited by it. Motivated by the possibility of doing good work as an educator.
But as the years went on, something shifted.
Teaching became less about what I could do through the profession and more about what the profession could do for me. That shift probably started near the end of COVID, and in the years since, it’s only solidified.
Once I started asking what this profession was doing for me, I found myself struggling to answer. Beyond a paycheck, I was having a harder and harder time finding its value.
Being away from work has given me the chance not to have it as my central focus. It has given me time not to think about it all the time, and that has been freeing. It has made space in my mind for other thoughts, other projects, other questions.
And so I’d like to stay here a little longer.
Thankfully, I’ll get that chance.
But more than that, I hope that when I do return to work, I’m able to come home and remain in this space — separate from it, grounded outside of it. Or perhaps I’ll find a better place to situate myself within education altogether.
I think that’s what I want to linger in for now: this calm, this clarity, this in-between space where things are still unfolding.
You can find this prompt, and many more, at Letters’ Lounge.
I’d love to hear your thoughts — whether in response to this prompt, this reflection, or any of the others.
This post was lightly cleaned up with AI to improve readability while keeping the original voice and meaning intact.
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