I was nearing the end of my first year in San Diego when this picture was snapped. I was on our inaugural class rafting trip on the south fork of the American River with my eighth graders, and the very thing I had worried would happen, happened: I fell out of the raft on our very first rapid.
This is the moment that launched my Becoming.
Not the decision to pack up and move across country before my husband or I had jobs--that was a reaction to life and job situations that no longer fit. Not the challenges that happened in my marriage in the months after this picture was taken--that was the first course I was thrust into on this journey.
No. This moment of being thrust out of my raft into churning rapids was my baptism for this journey.
There's a lot more to the story, but it boils down to this:
I was afraid, and not just of rafting.
The raft spit me out when we backed into a boulder.
I fell in.
I was not: afraid.
I was: irritated that my raft-mates weren't taking my paddle or following the directions we'd been given about how to pull people in.
I realized, afterwards, that what I'd feared wasn't really all that scary.
I wondered: What else am I afraid of that isn't really all that scary?
This is not a made-for-TV-movie, so I didn't start wrestling bears or skydiving the next day.
The metaphor is a little played out, but falling out of the raft was just the little bit of sand that began to irritate the proverbial oyster. I had witnessed a stark contrast between my fear and experience. It was enough to make me look for something more than the tight little prison I'd created for myself with the fears, rules, and stories that had been passed down to me or that I had made up all on my own.
In June of 2015, I took my tenth group of eighth graders rafting, and I hardly recognize the woman who took that first trip. This year, shaky and openly telling my students I was terrified but refused to be a prisoner of my fear, I jumped off a cliff into the river.
What is Becoming Ellen?
I don't know, but I expect I will find out. The idea for this blog came one day as I was running, following a Couch to 5K program (another leap out of my comfort zone), and it has kind of stuck with me. It seems a better place to park my thoughts than in a Facebook note as I have been doing.
I don't promise to post on any regular schedule, and I don't promise that it will be interesting or even relevant to you and your life. I do promise it will be truthful, or at least what feels true to me as I'm writing. It may not be your Truth, but it will be mine, and I reserve the right to change my mind as I grow and change.
After ten years of learning to appreciate discomfort (or at least the gifts that discomfort brings) and losing both of my parents to cancer within less than two years, I want to intentionally walk my edges and figure out a few things, namely:
Who am I?
What do I want?
What do I believe?
No, seriously, what do I really, really want?
Because I honestly don't know the answers to these questions, not completely, and if the past two years have taught me anything, it's that time is short. I want to become myself. I want to live my life, not someone else's vision of what it should be.
You're welcome to read or play along if you'd like. Or not. The choice is yours.