Five Years Later
On heartbreak and the healing that comes on the other side
When we turned the calendar from 2020 to 2021, we were supposed to be breathing a sigh of relief.
And I was. Joe Biden wasn’t my choice to defeat Donald Trump, but I felt better about the future with him soon at the helm. Our family had gotten through the year without getting COVID and vaccines were on the horizon. We had just installed solar panels on our house and we were looking forward to the financial benefits of getting the majority of our electricity from the sun. Our family returned from a fun and renewing winter break vacation to Palo Duro Canyon, celebrating our wedding anniversary during an overnight stay at a state park as we escaped a snowstorm covering the Texas panhandle.
Things were looking up, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still waiting for us on the horizon, something we couldn’t see that would continue to turn our lives upside down.
Three weeks later, everything I thought I knew about me, my faith community, my career, and our lives in Texas completely shattered.
Here’s what I can say: Before I discovered January 15, 2021 would be the last day I would ever teach in a Lutheran school, I had never stopped believing that my role as a Lutheran school educator meant that my English classroom was a place where my students learned how to think for themselves and put their faith into practice in the real world. We read books that challenged my students to think about how they would and should respond as Christians to a broken world. I assigned research projects that pushed them to understand bigger issues and to question their preconcieved notions. I wanted them to be kinder, more compassionate, and more curious. I wanted them to see the complexities surrounding them. A dear friend and former colleague from Fort Wayne would laugh when her honors English 10 students walked back into her classroom to visit after leaving one of my AP Language classes. Students frequently asked her, “So…is Styf a Republican or a Democrat, because I can’t tell and it’s driving me crazy.”
That is how I wanted it to be for the rest of my career…and then 2016 happened.
I was never-Trump from the jump because of my faith. And because I felt a strong responsibility as a Christian educator to help my students be more faithful Christians and responsible citizens, I struggled to continue to show my students “both sides” of the issues because one side became increasingly harmful. For four years I had suffered as a silent minority in both my workplace and faith community. While I refused to stay silent on social media (in a fruitless attempt to persuade my loved ones to see the truth about what was happening to the Church and our country), I spent my days suppressing the urge to tell my students exactly what I thought about the Trump administration. For years, my politics had been easily muddled; now, the fact that I fought for the oppressed and taught about women’s rights made me a clear bleeding heart liberal.
And after January 6, 2021, that would no longer be acceptible in staunchly red Texan spaces, even if we did live in one of the bluest counties in the state.
On MLK Jr. Day, broken in ways I never thought possible, I angrily dumped a pile of branded clothing on a table and cleared my classroom of everything that was uniquely mine, leaving the following sign on my classroom bulletin board as my final message to my students.
And for the last five years, our family has been going through the long healing process. I’m finally able to “love the thing I most wish hadn’t happened to me.” (Thanks for that, Stephen Colbert.) I know that God brought us back “home” because this is where we needed to be.
However, it’s been a constant cycle of grief and renewal.
I had to grieve the loss of Lutheran education for me and my kids. I learned to love teaching again once I was in the public school system, and then discovered new opportunities for my own children once we moved them both to our local public schools. I am so thankful for the Lutheran school teachers they had over the years, for the faith development and education they received. Now they are thriving in the public schools, and I am thankful for that as well.
I had to grieve again when I realized that the gift I had clung to for years came at a cost. Teaching in Lutheran schools gave me the opportunity to integrate my faith into my favorite subjects: English and history. My goal was always sending more knowledgeable, more compassionate, more complete young adults into the world. But it did come at a cost. I had to hold myself back even though I felt morally obligated to do more.
I found new freedom in public education, able to be more myself with my colleagues with less personal pressure regarding the moral education of my students. My personal politics are no longer tied to my value as a Christian educator. There is freedom in not feeling responsible for my students’ faith development. There is freedom in knowing that most of my English colleagues have the same desires for both education and the country. And there is freedom in not worrying about how or if my children’s teachers are shaping their moral education.
My kids are thriving, I’ve rediscovered a love for teaching that had been slowly beaten out of me, and my kids see and know their extended family in ways they couldn’t when we moved over 1000 miles away for six years.
Occasionally my son will ask my husband and I to name the favorite place we’ve ever lived, and we can honestly say that is has always been Indianapolis. Then he’ll ask if I ever miss Texas or regret living in Texas, and I can honestly tell him no. Every place we’ve lived gave us something, and there was more good than bad in our six years in Texas. A lot more good than bad. Unfortunately, our last six months were exceptionally hard, and for a long time, we were left with that period being far too fresh in our hearts and minds.
But now I look at pictures of our travels around Texas and I’m filled with warm memories. Photographs of our backyard and gatherings with friends scroll across the screen in our kitchen and I’m thankful for the found family we had during the time we lived in Houston. There were friendships that made me a better person. I had experiences that made me a better teacher. Worship and Bible studies at our church helped me grow in my faith in ways I hadn’t experienced since I was a teenager.
Five years ago, I couldn’t see a way out. I thought I would never teach again. I lost most of my community and didn’t know how I was going to rebuild my life. I felt like I was drowning.
Last November, my husband reminded me that the only way out is through. He was talking about the outcome of the election, but this has been true for our family for far longer than the last year. It took awhile, but we eventually found our way out of the darkness. And when the pattern repeats, we just keep going through until we get to the other side.
Five years later, the wounds have healed, even if the scars remain. But those scars are only part of the story, and I truly believe I am now stronger on the other side.
Support my writing
For more about the aftermath of the above journey, check out my first book!
While most of my work here is free for all subscribers, it is still a labor of love that I fit into the few hours I have when I am not teaching or being an attentive wife and mom. If you want to support my writing but you do not want to commit to being a paid subscriber, please consider a one-time donation.
You can also support me by ordering my book or books from my favorite book lists at my Bookshop.org affiliate page.
Check out my RedBubble store for related merchandise.
If you want to be a regular supporter, you can upgrade your subscription from free to paid and get occasional content only for paid subscribers.
And thank you for supporting my journey 💗