I keep on thinking about Mary Oliver.

How we don’t have to be perfect.

I also think a lot about the tattoo on my left arm. Timshel.

I don’t have to be perfect. But I may choose to be good.

I keep walking up and down the staircase of my decisions. Push forward is my motto.

Forward is always the right direction. I said this to my mother every time she stopped in the middle of a Roman sidewalk, the spaces surrounding us bustling with walking business people, tourists, religious pilgrims. They pushed up against us before spilling like water around the stubborn rocks.

I have been struggling with expectations recently. The brutality of expecting way too much of myself. The debilitating effect of constantly trying and expecting myself to just try to do one more thing. To fit one more thing on my agenda and plate and back.

Today, I described myself as a camel to a colleague. She laughed because we were observing all the stuff I was lugging around. My teacher bag. A Yeti filled with hot tea. My 32oz Nalgene bottle filled with water.

I laughed that today is hump day. How appropriate that I see myself as a camel.

But I carry the weight of expectations.

From the Board of Education (which is expected since I am a teacher).

From my administration (mostly fine but sometimes exhausting when it’s just one more thing).

From my colleagues (generally not a problem. We share the weight of each other’s expectations.)

From my students (which would be fine but frequently turn into the expectation that I will do more so they can do less but they will still earn an A for my work and my effort.)

From my students’ parents (which are usually not that big of a deal until it’s the extenuating circumstances combined with guilt that is married to flattery and masking neediness).

From the holes in the walls which listen to the noises I make or don’t make. The moments after school when I yoke my head between my hands and stare at the chaos scattered across my desk. The silence that seeps into loudness that swallows the exhaustion I should t be feeling this early in the school year and that I really can’t blame on my extenuating circumstances. And the loudness that whispers thunderstorms in my aching ears that are starting to dull and soften sounds until words are unintelligible.

I muddle through Wednesdays and mentally count down to Fridays when I dream about 7:30 on Saturday morning which is my ideal wake up time because it’s two hours past my alarm and the only expectations layered on me are from my food-driven, hungry dog.

I expect to breathe and feel the luxury of my heartbeat in my swollen knee. I expect to find inspiration in the quiet multitudes of seconds and bird songs echoing the caroling crickets and hidden tree frogs.

I expect to break past the ceramic molds of my expectations that will break my skin and cause me to bleed but not to bleed out and I won’t die and I won’t fail and the world will not collapse because I am not Atlas carrying the expectant world on my shoulders.

I expect the sun to rise. And to set. And to be follows by its sister moon who will glisten in the indigo black sky and bypass the distant stars that shine in their expectations to shed light on far off planets that will worship them for their heat or light or selfish beauty.

And I. The lonely quiet mote residing on my corner of the Earth. I will continue to breathe in expectation of the next moment when I will finally forgive myself for not being perfect.