If you listened to country music in the year 2005 you know I stole the title for this post from the song with the same title that was made popular by Jon Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles. My brain can’t remember things that happened in the morning in the afternoon, but it can remember song lyrics from 19 years ago. It’s too bad there are no jobs that the only requirement is you have to be able to finish the lyrics of songs.. I could excel at that career.

The last couple Sundays I have spent an hour each morning volunteering for my church’s Sunday School program and it has felt like coming home in ways I wasn’t expecting. It’s the first time I have been around groups of kids since having to resign from my job in the education field almost 2 years ago. I find myself saying things like “Please use your walking feet”, “Sit on your pockets so your body stays safe” and other phrases that in my BLC (Before Long Covid) life I would say hundreds of times a day, but haven’t left my lips in almost 2 years. I find myself laughing and smiling in a way that only being around a group of children and hearing their stories, their jokes, and their life perspectives can elicit.

I was nervous to jump back into being around kids. Nervous about how my brain would handle it as loud sounds and prolonged sensory input can be overwhelming for me. If you’ve ever spent anytime around a child you know that loud sounds and sensory input are a given. Nervous about how my body would physically handle having to be “on” for an hour each week. And finally, nervous about how I would handle it emotionally as there is a lot of grief just beneath the surface of having to resign from my job working with kids. A couple months ago when I donated all my teaching stuff to a local early childhood center, I left the center ugly crying. Correction.. I fled the early childhood center like I was fleeing a forest fire. The poor woman who ran the center was beyond confused that the sight of an early childhood classroom had me bawling. That being said, you can imagine why I was worried I’d walk into the Sunday School classroom and end up in the corner in tears. Not exactly helpful to have the volunteer who is supposed to be helping in the classroom siting in the corner, crying. Although maybe it would be a good lesson on feeling one’s feelings. Luckily, I haven’t had to find out.

The first couple Sundays it was hard emotionally because I got a taste for an hour of how I used to feel everyday of my life at work. I felt the joy, the contentment, and the sense of home in my soul that I used to feel each day I was working with kids. Even on the hard days when my para’s and I would joke about how we should just go work at Taco Bell,I knew in my soul I was exactly where I was supposed to be doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Being a teacher/working with kids is what I was born to do, what I love to do, and I am at home in a classroom in a way I am not at home anywhere else. Getting a taste of that sense of home and knowing for an hour each week was delightful, but it also brought up the grief that I no longer have that everyday of my life. It forced me to begin to confront that grief in a way that I haven’t had to.

I’ve also been forced to work on not comparing my one hour each Sunday morning to years of a career because if I do, the one hour each Sunday morning always comes up short and I miss the gift that one hour is. It is a gift to get to feel that joy and that sense of home for an hour each week. It is a gift to get reacquainted with a part of myself I thought was dead and gone. Turns out, she’s not dead and gone she’s just been on an extended hiatus. It is a gift to get to experience the swirling, chaotic, exuberant, and unique way children approach life. It is a gift to get to learn from them.

I think Jon Bon Jovi and Jennifer Nettles were onto something back in 2005 when they wrote their song. I think you absolutely can go home again, but you have to accept that “home” will be different. It will look different, feel different, sound different, etc than it did before and that’s ok. Different isn’t less than, it’s just different. If you keep expecting home now to feel like, look like, and sound like home did before, you’ll always come up short and you’ll miss the gifts that home now has to offer to you.