Word: Carry

Sentence:

Just because we have learned how to carry something does not mean it is no longer heavy.

Passage:

It was after six o’clock on a September evening during my first year as a principal. The school was nearly empty. For most of the day, I had done what leaders do. I listened. I answered questions. I solved problems. I made myself available to anyone who needed me.

Then everyone left.

I was sitting alone in my office when my head began to twitch. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. Then the smell of fall coming through my window took me somewhere else.

Back to Harper High School. Back to the gunshots I had grown accustomed to hearing outside my office. Back to the students we had lost. Back to Cedric. Back to Shakaki. Back to things I thought I had left behind when I walked into a new school and started a new chapter.

I hadn’t left them behind. I had carried them with me.

For years, I called what happened next the September Shakes. Every fall, something in my body remembered what my mind had gotten pretty good at pushing aside. And I did what so many leaders learn to do.

I carried on.

Find an empty room. Cry for a few minutes. Get some water. Go back to work. There were people depending on me.

But there is a difference between carrying something and healing from it.

Leadership can teach us to become really good at carrying. We carry the worries of our teams, the problems nobody else knows about, the decisions that keep us awake, the people we couldn’t help, and the mistakes we wish we could take back. Somewhere along the way, carrying it all can start to feel like the job.

School leaders know this weight, but we are hardly the only ones who carry it. Teachers carry the needs of the students who walk into their classrooms every day. Parents and caregivers carry worries their children may never fully know about. Partners carry each other through hard seasons. Friends become the person someone calls when life falls apart. The roles are different, but there is something familiar in all of it: we keep carrying because someone is depending on us.

Sometimes we carry something for so long that we stop noticing its weight. We adjust. We learn how to work around it, how to smile with it, and how to keep showing up with it.

Maybe strength isn’t proving how much we can carry. Maybe strength is becoming honest about what has become too heavy to carry alone.

Because the things we refuse to put down don’t disappear.

We just get better at carrying them.

Your Turn:

 What have you gotten so good at carrying that you stopped noticing how heavy it is?

A quick thank you to everyone who has commented, emailed, or reached out to let me know that one of these little sparks meant something to you. I try to respond to every person who takes the time to share. If you have not already, feel free to visit the website, read through the comments, and add your own voice to the conversation. I always appreciate hearing what a word brings up for you.

Read past Match posts here: chadhthomas.com

Share this with a friend, family member, colleague, principal, assistant principal, teacher… Copy and paste this subscription link and send it to someone and ask them to join The Match Newsletter here: https://chad-h-thomas.kit.com/