It's for real.

I actually turned in my letter of resignation. That's official stuff right there. There's no turning back.

And the best part, I am completely confident in that decision. Completely. Obviously, given the contents of recent posts, I am a little sad about leaving, but I know I am headed in the right direction.

It's kind of surreal really. Some realizations I've had this week include:

Next year the only school supplies I'll be buying will be for my own child.
On August 11th when other teachers are going back to work, I won't.
I won't have a classroom to set up.
I am going to miss desperately the halls of GMS and seeing a staff every day that, despite bad days and annoying parents and rowdy kids, laughed and had fun together.
I am a good teacher. Mr. Waters parting words to me included, among many other things, that I shouldn't sell myself short in any area of my life. I'm the one of the best he's ever seen and it would be an injustice if I didn't return to the classroom.
I am a wife and a mom now. That's it. A wife and a mom. (a little bit photographer/tutor there too) That's all I've ever wanted to be. A dream realized.

There's this book I have called The Art of the Daydream. It was a gift from a person who believes in me and, in that action, challenges me. I never really thought of myself as much of a daydreamer until recently. I guess in a lot of ways I've been afraid to dream. Because dreaming can often lead to painful disappointment. It's easier to live in partial contentment wondering what if than to dream the impossible and never see it realized. I now know that's stupid. Dreams, even the ones broken, the ones that can never really be are worth pondering, worth imagining, worth the time. And if I can actually daydream into reality something from my mind, then I am that much closer to my truest life.

One of the quotes in the book says, "Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your prophecy of what you shall at last unveil." - James Lane Allen

I've dreamed my whole life of being the person I am in this moment. I am me. Jenny - wife, mom, friend, daughter, teacher (once a teacher, always a teacher), dreamer.

I don't know what the next day holds. I don't know how this page turner will play out. But I do know that page one of this new chapter begins, "At last, I am exactly where I have always wanted to be..."