Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Ahead.

June 13, West Creek.

So the end is near. 
All of this, my work, my life, for all those exhilarating years.
By the end of this month I'll be entering what is called pre-service training in Providence with the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows, a national program that recruits highly qualified individuals and trains them to be teachers who help close the achievement gap by excelling in high-need schools in America. 
I am excited, and utterly scared about the prospect.
I am awed by the expectations and the challenges ahead, not just in this my new job, but in this new life, my life in the circus abruptly over before it started again, this life of constant challenges and endless flow but they are challenges and wild ebbs I know, this is the circus, this is home.  Ahead lies an ocean of unknowns visited by storms I've never weathered, and the world I've left behind.
But the kids will go to a good school, the prospect of changing lives through education is as inspiring as it daunting, and we'll be back to wake up and smell the sawdust as often as we can.

7 comments:

Arts in the Family said...

Good luck to you and your family on your new adventure.

Alberto Ramirez Jr.

Dick Dykes said...

WE'LL MISS YOU!
BUT AS THEY SAY YA GOTTA DO-WHAT YA GOTTA DO!"
SO GOOD LUCK AND GOD BLESS!
THE BBALLOONMAN

Valérie Berta Torales said...

Thank you both!
I'll miss the circus sooooo much, it feels like my whole life now, not just the latest development in a long life of roaming the world.

Rose Fox said...

Good luck to you.

The road is different but it takes you along to the same goals. To a good life for you and your family, to granting a good life to others and their families.

I wish you love, and joy and peace and prosperity.

...and I'm very grateful for the god work you'll be doing. I've lived in R.I. and am from near by southeastern MA. We need you, and those like you. Thank you for your service.

Valérie Berta Torales said...

Thanks, Rose, that's the idea, giving back, helping others achieve their dreams after so many dreams fulfilled, and yet others not even envisioned and already granted, like the circus, that I've had the good fortune to experience.

patrizia said...

Wow, Valerie! What an enormous, enormous change but a good one I think. You will be an absolutely terrific teacher, there's no doubt in my mind. A bittersweet transition, I'm sure, but a very smart one.

Valérie Berta Torales said...

Thanks, Patrizia, and I wish I share your confidence, for at this point I feel I can't do this at all. A bittersweet transition indeed, you nailed it.