Pre-flight Turbulence

"It comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying." Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption

October 1st

It's funny when you reflect on the idea of a life. That usually manifests by thinking about what career you want to pursue, the kind of house you want to buy, and the ideal geography in which you'd like to buy it. And without realizing it, you can get locked in, falling into an automated rhythm dictated by finances, comfort or worst of all, fear. Fear of taking risks that might result in failure. Fear that you may not be up for the task. Fear of leaving what feels safe, comfortable, predictable. And if you're not careful, you begin to give up on any notion of change, of progress, of a purpose beyond yourself.

Our family has found ourselves in this very scenario. Philip and I both had comfortable jobs, a comfortable home, in a comfortable community with low taxes. Our kids have had the same version of existence their entire lives in the same home. We've been slowly building our finances towards a comfortable version of retirement at some point in the future. Our trajectory was completely normal, on par with what an average American existence is supposed to be. And yet, there was a growing sense of restlessness, and a growing sense of frustration at the inability to do anything worthwhile in our careers. Unfortunately, bureaucratic restrictions and a culture of compliance is alive and well in educational systems. Although I believe many of our educational decision-makers mean well, those on the lower-rungs are feeling the suffocating effects of standardized mandates and "best practices" that are poorly tied to cherry-picked research. It's become a very data-centric business, education has, and unfortunately, that leaves very little room for creativity. We've lost sight of the humanity that once led the teacher-learner relationship, and we're seeing the effects of the sterilized, detached product we are offering to our students.

It's one thing to reflect on this problem as an educator. But it resonates even deeper when your children come home with their own frustrations at a disconnected educational experience. Our kids, with the notable exception of a few teachers, have largely been overlooked because of their academic proficiency. Rare is the occasion where they have been pushed beyond their level of comfort, to see how far they can actually go. As a result, they have floated through most of their academic years.

I also knew they were struggling with the behavioral trends of most of their peers. The ubiquitous use of smart phones and ear buds has notably dampened the social development of pre-teens and teens. I wholeheartedly agree with the perspective that claims in a more globally connected time, people are becoming more disconnected. Having worked in a high school the last 5 years, where you used to see kids congregated, actively engaged in conversations, you now see individuals sitting right next to each other, their eyes glued to their screens, neither acknowledging the presence of the other. The rise in personal technology availability and usage has allowed the awkwardness of adolescence to prevail and linger longer than it should. As a response to this observation (as well as researching a lot about the pros and cons of screen time for different ages), Philip and I have set limits for device usage and screen exposure for our kids. We've encouraged them to engage with the physical, tangible world as much as possible, because it forces you out of your own mind a bit more. It provides a social check that keeps you from running away with just your perspective, which is always a good thing. But...because this is counter to the unbridled social media usage of most of our kids' friends, they often feel ostracized for being different. A sentiment with which their parents are all too familiar.

So when the opportunity came for something drastically different from our way of life, there was a lot of context that made it extremely appealing. Back in June or July of this past summer, my sister-in-law sent me a text containing a screen shot of an advertisement for families with multiple children to move to a village in rural Alaska. This particular village needed kids to boost their enrollment, in order to keep their school open. If this sounds familiar to you, you probably read about it online and know the place of which I speak. She jokingly said she thought of us, and that it'd be right up our alley, since Philip and I have said for many years that we are cold-climate people who are desperate to get out of Texas. The geography and climate of Texas has never been our ideal. I sat on it for a while, but the more I thought about it, the more the idea took hold. Talking it over with the Philip and the kids, they all said I should respond to the ad and just see what happens. And since it seemed so far-fetched, I figured, why not? So, I sent an email of inquiry to the address listed in the ad, giving our credentials as teachers, and the number and ages of our children. And then I waited to see if we'd get a response. However, when we read later that summer that thousands of families had responded to the ad, we figured that was that. It was a fun thought experiment to have whilst embedded in the safety of our normal, everyday life. We moved on, and began a new school year.

And then, out of the blue in September, I got a response. A one-line email, the Thursday before Labor Day weekend that said, "Hi Ashley, we are wondering if you are still interested, please let me know."

I think my heart skipped a beat. This hypothetical pursuit all of the sudden became very real. And I debated what to do. I could shake it off, and delete it, keeping myself and my family here, where our trajectory was safe, and known. Or, I could share it with the family, and get their input, knowing that might increase the risk of changing our life significantly. I didn't debate long, however, because of course I had to share it with the family. It had been a joint decision to inquire about this opportunity, so it had to be joint decision about what to do about the response. I'll skip over the tedious details a bit, to spare your time and your scrolling, but essentially, after talking it over with Philip and the kids, it was a unanimous decision to write back and let them know that we were still interested. That set off a tumultuous week of email exchanges and phone calls, laden with a lot of questions, and surprisingly very few concrete answers. The village wanted us there by October 1st, which considering the fact that at that point, it was less than a month away, there was no feasible way we could make that happen. In informing the contact of that, their response was to move on to other families that were further down the list.

A part of me was relieved. It was like an internal knee-jerk reaction to cling to what was familiar. However, I was not prepared for how the kids would react. In telling them that Alaska had fallen through, a notable melancholy settled over the household, replacing the excitement and energy that had been present the week before. It caught Philip and I both off guard, of how much it seemed our kids really wanted to go. We talked it over with them, and our discussion led Philip to make some phone calls about other opportunities in Alaska. He found one. Another rural village that needed two teachers, one primary and one secondary. Perfect for the two of us. Again, skipping through some of the extraneous details, we learned that these openings were currently open, and that we were needed as soon as possible. So, once again, just like that, Alaska was back on the table. I'm telling you, all this "Yes? No. We're going? We're not going. We're going?" was mentally and emotionally taxing. And I was still conflicted. It seemed everyone else was wrapping their heads around this faster than I was. Of course, that shouldn't be surprising, considering the fact that I've spent most of my life in Nolanville. The house Philip and I have spent the last 18 years of our marriage in was my childhood home. The only time I've ever moved was when I went off to college, which was really more like an extended stay than a substantial move. And I emotionally connect to places and people pretty intensely, and in a shockingly short period of time. So the idea of actually leaving this place, even though it was a stated goal of mine, seemed not only terrifying, but actually impossible.

Not to mention the people we'd be leaving behind. I could part with the geography, but I had a job where I loved the people I worked with, and we have family members to whom we've grown really close. Philip and I have had many friends and acquaintances over the years who have come and gone, and we've always been the ones who've stayed. The ones who are left behind. The notion of us being the ones to do the leaving seemed so foreign to what we had become: the constant.

But with this opportunity now officially on the table, we began to move forward with this crazy idea of changing the course of our life, and daring to step out of our comfort zone. Within a matter of a couple of weeks, we had applied, been interviewed, and then offered teaching positions in the rural village of Kaltag, Alaska. Two more weeks after that contained hours of email exchanges, phone calls, and paperwork, to make this crazy hypothetical a tangible reality. The end result? We fly out of Austin in the wee hours of the morning, Saturday, October 14th, only two weeks after what I initially thought would have been impossible.

And now, here we are, this second week in October, madly trying to whittle down the last 18 years of our life into eight 20-gallon tubs, a few carry-ons, and a handful of boxes to our new two bedroom/one bathroom home in Alaska. I think I can safely say that we are getting rid of about 80% of what we own. I laugh when I reflect on my comment that I made, at some point over the summer, about wanting to declutter the house. Accomplishing that in a month is an intense way to assess what things you really value. (There aren't many.) It's been an enlightening experience, and in so many ways, I'm rediscovering parts of myself that I haven't thought about in years. At various points in my life, I've written about my fear of taking risks, and my fear of pushing myself outside my comfort zone. (I still have the journals.) Rereading each of those entries, as I've been going through the "memory tubs," has solidified even further this decision to embrace the unknown. However, to say I've cried at some point every day this past month is not hyperbole. And those old journal entries of mine revealed to me that it's been a common habit of mine to take to writing when life is hard. This blog was actually Philip's idea, since he knows that about me, to which I commented that it might be good for me to take the knots in my stomach and stretch them into lines on a page.

It was so hard to say goodbye to my friends at work, who have become so important to me in such a short time. The impending goodbye that awaits for some of our family is going to be tough. Words can not describe how hard that's going to be. But Philip has said that the hardest part is the disentanglement, removing ourselves from the threads that have been woven over four decades. And looking behind you is where pain usually resides. So, when it seems overwhelming, I focus on what we're headed towards. The intensity of this unprecedented move has made me feel alive. All the senses are on hyperdrive, taking in every sensation, every emotion, marinating on every thought.

Get busy living, or get busy dying. I didn't realize how much we were on autopilot until now. One of the questions we've gotten the most from people, when telling them about this crazy move is, "What about your kids? What do they think about all of this?" In truth, they have been the driving force in sticking to this decision. For those of you who know us well, you know that Jadyn, our eldest, is a senior this year. The fact that we're pulling her out of a life she's always known, in the middle of her senior year, was a major consideration for us. We said from the get go, that we wouldn't go unless the decision was unanimous. We checked in with her the most. And what she said really hit to my core. She said, "I know it's going to be hard, and I know there are things I will miss. But I think this is something we all need to do." It was in that moment that I realized our kids have been feeling the same stagnation that Philip and I have. They too needed to feel challenged, to feel alive.

We know there is going to be so much to learn. We know it's going to be so hard to leave the friends and family that have become such an integral part of our lives. We also know that this new life is going to be hard, at least at first. There are going to be sacrifices that are uncomfortable. And yet, we're looking forward to learning. Learning new ways, and learning more about what we're made of. I know many of you are probably curious as to how this whole experience is going to go, for the family of native, suburban Texans braving the wilds of Alaska. So are we, I assure you! We'll do our best to keep you informed through this little corner of cyberspace. Our greatest hope though, is that we'll have something of value to offer the people who are accepting us into their way of life.