2018: A Year of Transitions

Usually around this time, I start scrolling through photos on my phone to replay the events and adventures of the past year.

The pictures under the December 2017 category depict seventeen of my favorite five- and six-year-olds—the ones I had the opportunity to teach during the second half of student teaching in Nashville one year ago.

I’m a teensy bit jealous of students at that elementary school, because starting in kindergarten, their teachers evenly split their instruction into a half-English, half-Spanish school day. The result: after only three months of school, the kindergarteners I met spoke better Spanish than all of the Spanish II students at the high school where I had completed my first student teaching placement.

Of course, that’s no fault of the high schoolers’ own…it’s significantly easier to pick up a language at an early age. Conclusion: America needs language-immersion elementary schools nationwide.

*Steps down from soap box before things get out of hand

Anyway, both the high school and kindy students helped me earn a Tennessee Teaching Certificate (which, as it turns out, is just about as valuable as Monopoly money here in Washington) and I left Nashville for Christmas Break 2017 as a real-life-TEACHER! Woo hoo!

Saba! Photo credit Grant Exline

Upon return to Nashville in the first weeks of 2018, I started work on a documentary series about the island of Saba. After months of going to schools around the city every day, I found such peace in sitting in the Lipscomb computer lab, headphones in my ears, perusing hours of tropical footage that I had shot the previous July.

And I thought, “that’s right, Katie! You’re really a Videographer.”

During those weeks, I felt like my undergraduate self again: I arrived at the familiar computer lab every day, worked for a few hours, met up with friends, had lunch on campus, trained for the upcoming track season that I’d decided to race as an unattached athlete, and attended classes at night.

I had missed being “College Katie.”

However, when the documentaries dropped in mid-February, I once again faced a transition.

I don’t love change—who does?—and I have always deeply mourned the end of things. Even in elementary school, I was acutely aware of the passage of time, feigning an I’m-so-excited-for-summer smile as I hopped on the bus on the last day of school and waiting until I got home to have a good cry. Though I’d return to the same school building in the fall with the same friends, and I’d ultimately like the coming year more than the past one, I knew it would never be exactly the same.

So, in February 2018, I stood on the precipice of a proverbial “new school year.”

The Man of Snohomish, Mr. Rodland. Click to view his 90th birthday video. Not my best editing ever, but I LOVED the community aspect of building this project!

I started substitute teaching pretty regularly to test out different age groups and demographics of students. Meanwhile I dabbled in several freelance videography projects. “In a few short months,” I thought, “I will sort out this what I want to be when I grow up quandary based on these ‘tester’ activities.” (Insert laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji)

BSF Group 2017-18

I had joined Bible Study Fellowship in September 2017, but I really started loving the routine of attending class each week at the start of 2018. I loved reading and discussing the book of Romans with the women in my small group and knowing I had a team of prayer warriors looking out for me throughout the week.

And I cannot thank our group leader, Maureen, enough for her encouraging weekly phone calls, spot-on advice, and gentle guidance on class nights.

After BSF every Monday, I’d come home to a group of my roommates on the couch watching The Bachelor—a program which I despise but enjoy providing snarky background commentary for—and laugh along with them at Arie’s ridiculous dates and antics.

I loved living at the house on Welshwood: we had family dinners, Sherlock watch parties, and people over for games on the weekends. I loved watching Kaitlyn, a college friend I’d reunited with at Welshwood, live her incredible life of routines. Anyone who knows Kaitlyn will attest that there’s no way her organization, meticulous use of time, endless positivity, and encouraging smile cannot inspire you to be your best self. (Possible topic of mini documentary in 2019???)

But I did miss living with the women of The Village from 2017, so in March when the opportunity arose to move across town to an apartment with a few of them, I jumped at the chance.

While I continued to adjust to living off-campus, running unattached instead of on the Lipscomb team, and studying a different subject from undergrad, why not add an extra change to the equation just to spice things up, right?

The apartment in Green Hills quickly proved itself a worthy home: I could walk across the street to the grocery store, make it to class in six minutes flat (as long as I didn’t have to scour the entirety of Lipscomb’s campus for parking), and spend less time sitting in traffic on the bridge over I-65.

I could also run to a track from my doorstep.

But soon, that didn’t matter. I started to experience some weird breathing issues throughout the day (still don’t know what to attribute them to) and serious fatigue when I ran. I knocked my own socks clean off my feet on several occasions by stopping to WALK mid run.

Dad and I at the Shoney's 5k and 1hr later at graduation

Yet in early May, my dad and I still raced the Shoney’s 5k on the day of Master’s graduation, finishing one hour before I’d walk across the stage. I love the crazy things we do.

Finally, after a tough 1600 race at the end of May where my limbs once again felt like they do in a dream sequence where you’re stuck in sand, I decided to stop formally training.

For the first time in 10 years, I didn’t have a race on the horizon. I didn’t have to train for anything. Earth-shaking. Simultaneously the best feeling ever and the most confusing of times.

Soon after, my mom arrived to help me drive home to Snohomish from Nashville. We saw the whole USA from June 2nd-10th as we clunked along in my little red 1999 Ford Contour!

During the summer, I realized I did not know how to rest. I had zero obligations for the first time in…well, ever…and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Of course, God provided rest intermixed with activities at just the right times.

I prayed for opportunities to work and He provided the chance for both Chris and I to shoot a track meet for Runnerspace in Burnaby, Canada.

We studied The Armor of God by Priscilla Shirer. Whew, excellent and timely!

I prayed to find community in Washington, and He sent an amazing group of girls with whom to study His word throughout the summer and on into the school year.

I prayed for renewed health—whew, that’s a big one—and He answered and keeps answering that prayer so many ways.

The first sign of recovery came in July when a woman asked for help repainting the inside of her house. I warily accepted the job. And to my surprise, instead of feeling immediately exhausted as I had with many tasks since April, I found myself dancing and singing along to songs on the radio and painting for hours without needing a break.

In August, Edmonds School District posted an assistant cross-country coaching position for the fall.

What a blessing.

Working with the athletes at Lynnwood High School gave me a fresh perspective on running. I LOVED sharing one tiny tidbit of information about how to start a race or how to best run around corners or how to throw a surge, and then watching them absolutely nail it! I loved seeing young runners fall in love with the sport and become a family in a few short months.

LHS XC 2018

And I learned so much about training and coaching from our head coach, Stephanie Tastad. What an incredible mentor!

During the fall, I also started substitute teaching in Edmonds and Snohomish. I kicked off the year with a long-term Spanish-teaching job at a high school (because why not jump into something blind on the third week of the school year and have one weekend to plan for a month of lessons after not really being sure you want to be a teacher am I right folks).

I swear I doubled the amount I’d learned in the year-and-a-half education program and four months of student teaching at Lipscomb in the three weeks of free rein of my own classroom, grading, technology, application of curriculum, testing, relationship-building…

I could not have asked for a more attentive, humorous, and participatory group of students to work with as I tested out a method of Spanish teaching, called TPRS, that I’d studied but never applied in real life.

Shout out to fulltime teachers: YA’LL ARE AMAZING. WHOLE BIG LOT OF APPRECIATION.

The last few months of every year always end in a blur.

At the start of November, I took a sweet, sweet trip back to Nashville to catch up with friends and family 😉

Upon return, my dad and I started coaching (herding) a 5th grade girls’ basketball team. The girls ingeniously named our offensive play “Tomato-Tomato” (pronounced “toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe”) to “confuse our opponents so we can easily score” (which has been a bust in terms of wins so far, but I love the heart behind it. Watch out world, there’s a tomatoey freaking STORM on the horizon).

Several of our Storm B-ball players

To cap off the year, a friend from college convinced (asked me one time and I emphatically said “yep” for some reason) me to run a 12k.

Talk about a sign of healing: in May, the physical and mental strain I felt after racing 1600 meters stopped me dead in my tracks; six months later, I completed 7.5 miles of hilly-road-race without [significant] heartache or damage. I still don’t feel like my “old self,” but this is the closest I’ve come to “normal” in a while.

I expect the transitions and soul-searching will continue well through 2019, but that’s more and more ok with me.

God has continuously used new situations and people to remind me of His care and plan that’s always far better than my own (see Blog Post #1).

I pray that the Lord will use the unexpected circumstances and transitions of 2019 to remind both you and me of His presence, love, mercy, and peace and to draw us into closer relationship with Him.

Happy New Year!