many things can be true at once

"Many things can be true at once." 

                                   -Lina Juarbe i Botella

These words were spoken to me at a conference I attended last week and they have been attached to my consciousness ever since. I haven't been able to shake them. They've awakened something in me that is real and rich and painful and beautiful.

I suppose, in a sense, this awakening has made the statement true. Many things can indeed be true at once.

It is April 4th as I write this. The day of my birth. 

Yes, it's my birthday.

I love having it be my birthday and I simultaneously hate it. 

Many things are true at once.

I love the day because it is mine. It is a day to be celebrated. A day to acknowledge where I've been and where I'm going.

I simultaneously dislike the attention and the pressure for the day to be special and I also recognize that 24 years ago, on my 11th birthday, my father collapsed before I could even hear the words "Happy Birthday." He had suffered a massive stroke. I think my birthday, from that day onward, represented the reality that our hopes and dreams and anticipation can be quickly cast from us...even on the most joyful of days.

Last week I had the opportunity to be a guest on my first ever podcast. The experience was really exciting, but it was also a little disappointing. I was critical of myself and the way I sounded, the number of times I said "like," and how over-caffeinated I sounded. Do I really talk like that? I wondered.

 I simultaneously wanted everyone and no one to listen to it.

The experience was many things being true at once.

I also know that I came across as successful as confident and as enthusiastic. But those truths seem to overshadow the anxiety and depression that are also constant factors in my life, that are also elements of my identity and who I am. It is easy to look optimistic and engaged and enthusiastic and driven on the outside, but that also makes it harder to suffer on the inside because I don't want to let anyone down by being vulnerable. Saying "I'm not okay." is the hardest sentence in the world for me to speak.

I also neglected to mention the impact my own wife has on my ability to "do it all." Behind every successful person is someone behind the scenes making everything possible and supporting the person in moments of weakness and self-doubt, picking up the pieces so someone else can shine. My wife is that person. I forgot to mention her on the podcast.

I, myself, confirm that many things can be true at once.

So what on earth does this have to do with my students?

Well hearing this truth spoken to me last week has attuned me to who my students are and to all they bring to the classroom. 

Like me, there are many things that are simultaneously true about their lives as well.

We just finished Animal Farm and I was struck by how many of my students are choosing to write essays that connect Orwell's novella to their own lives. They are looking at meaty, important topics that come from their hearts and their experiences. They are not electing to focus their energy on intellectual pieces that provide textual evidence or that approach the topic from a position of literary analysis.

Can they do that? Yeah, sure they can. In fact, they've done it a ton this year already. But they're ready to go deeper. Many things are true in their lives, but if they don't open themselves up to the fact that life can be messy and leaning into the discomfort that comes from sharing part of themselves, they're missing an opportunity to grow as writers. 

Writers write what they know. 

Today I asked my students to respond to the following prompt:

What would it take for today to be a historic day in your life?

My students wrote in such brave and beautiful ways. 

They wrote about how much easier it is to make a day historic in a negative way than a positive one.

They admitted the risk involved in doing something memorable or something that could have positive impact.

They recognized that many of the "historic" actions they might do would actually be pivotal and historic moments in the lives of someone else...that their impact might never be realized.

But what if each of my students left school today with a goal of being that stranger who, twenty years from now, is the topic of someone's TED talk. What it the TED talk begins with a person saying,

"Twenty years ago I had a moment I would define as historic because it changed everything for me. And it started the moment a 14 year old kid walked up to me..."

What could that kid have done? What could they have said?

Many things can be true at once, but one of my jobs is to empower my students to believe in themselves as change agents in the trajectory of the world.

And then there's me. It's my 35th birthday. What if today ends up being the day that I ask my students to respond to a prompt and one of them goes out and does something a little differently and it changes someone.

Or what if it doesn't.

My English class today mattered. But it was also just an English class where we spent time together. I'm sure some of my students were bored. Others might have been inspired.

Many things can be true at once.

And that is okay.