School resumes tomorrow. Earlier today, I could feel some anxiety rising–that feeling of stress and the fast pace that keeps you moving non-stop through six periods and 140+ students as you juggle and manage and direct and teach and coach and listen and–

So overwhelming, when you look at it like that. Isn’t it?

Heading back to school (or work, or any other place of professional responsibility) is not a “reality” that you try your hardest to escape. These past 12 days that we have had off since Christmas Eve have been the greatest reality imaginable. Returning to school doesn’t negate that reality; in fact, it affirms it.

Our return to school is a continuation of our reality, our journey, and it isn’t something that we should consider as the “enemy” or the “Great Denying Overlord” that prohibits us from living our lives any different, really, than we do on break, vacation, sabbatical, whatever you want to call what we’ve been on.

I look at it this way: This ride is a long one comprising events and occurrences at varying speeds — all appropriate for their intended purpose — but varying nonetheless. We live as genuinely at one speed as we might another. One does not negate the other; in fact, one gives us greater perspective of the other.

As we head back the classrooms in less than 12 hours, hold on to the reality that has been in place this entire vacation. Enjoy the ride to school, the sounds inside the classrooms, the life energy of the students, and the existence of YOU in the place where you have chosen to be.

Just as this moment is your PRESENT, your everything to you RIGHT NOW, so it will be when you return to school. Every moment has that opportunity to be the greatest reality ever experienced.

So enjoy the return to reality school, and don’t let go of the real person you continue to become, every day of the year.