My whole life, I’ve based a lot of my self-worth on the fact that things come naturally to me. I know this isn’t a wise thing, since this will obviously not always be the case. In my 26 years, though, there haven’t been many things that have been very difficult. On the other hand, I know myself pretty well and I can see when something is going to be difficult so maybe I tend to shy away from those things so I don’t have to deal with failure. So maybe it’s not that nothing is difficult for me but that I have always chosen not to challenge myself.

To be honest, I can see this in my school work. School has never been difficult for me, but I’ve never tried to go beyond what I thought I could do. A good example of this would be an English class that my school had called Modern Literature. Everyone knew Modern Lit was the hardest class the English department offered. You had to actually be invited to the class to take it. That’s how exclusive it was. The best and the brightest took that class and they all vented about how much work it required but they also raved about how much they loved it. I decided before I was even offered a place in the class that I was not going to take it. I was not about to add stress to my senior year if it wasn’t necessary. I already had my college acceptance locked in at the university I wanted, so why go through the trouble of taking difficult classes I didn’t need?

Looking back, I can see this pattern of complacence throughout my college career, as well. I’ve always been an A student, but I’ve never pushed myself for the sake of pushing myself. I would do the minimum to get my A, which is all I wanted, and nothing more.

Maybe I didn’t know enough about TFA before I started or maybe I overestimated my ability, but this experience has been hard—definitely one of the hardest I’ve gone through. Being thrown into a classroom of nineteen students who are depending on me to help them get to tenth grade English has been surprising. Lesson planning has not come easy to me. Time management has not come easy to me, either. The only thing that has come easy is being in front of the kids. That has been the one redeeming part of this experience. Going into the last few weeks, though, students’ weaknesses are starting to show and I’m realizing that entertaining them will not cut it. They need real, concrete, transformational help and I have no idea how to give it to them.

I’m realizing more than ever that this experience will require my body, heart, and soul, as I give all my attention to these kids and learn to give them individualized attention and help them succeed in the way that each of them needs. It will require a lot of work and it will be hard, but I know it will be worth it. And I’ll know that if I want to, I really can do hard things.