Irreplaceable

An exploration of the places we are truly irreplaceable, and my New Year's intentions.

Last night, I wrote a letter of reference for a former teacher that I coached during my time as an Assistant Principal. The term “wrote” is generous given that since the timeline was tight and I’m on a delightful break, I asked the teacher to write it for himself and send to me for finalization. I edited a couple sentences, added letterhead and sent it back, which took less than 5 minutes on my part.

It was an interesting experience to read with how much ease this teacher, applying for some fancy policy internship, wrote about how masterful, brilliant, and effective he was. While I was able to authentically cosign this letter with some tweaks to ensure it was my own voice, it reminded me of one of my most agonizing, yet illuminating experiences was when a professor of mine notoriously responded to reference requests by making us write our own. While it was an ultimately powerful and important experience for me, it took days for me to force words to the page about my strengths, and I still remember the groundless feeling of submitting my feeble letter and feeling like an imposter, in spite of the effectiveness of the letter she ultimately finalized.

This recent recommendation writing experience is a powerful reminder. It’s actually refreshing when people confidently self promote in this way; it’s just so new and scratchy to me as someone who was not socialized to do this. Our coaching relationship is actually one of the ones I am proudest of cultivating. Out of the now dozens of teachers I’ve coached; his classroom from the time we started working together to the time he left was truly night and day; he made exponential growth in the classroom, and it wasn’t an easy journey for either of us. My own imposter syndrome be damned: If he can write this letter about himself with the amount of time he spent on the job, albeit with notable successes, we all can embrace this positive sense of self. There is a definite lesson here, and I fully recognize the difference between inward and outward confidence. I can only speak to the latter, and recognize the complexities and unknowns that still may lie under the surface. .Yet, imagine the impact if all marginalized identities truly embraced this level of confidence! I’ll speak for myself:

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Lord, give me the outward confidence of a cisgender white man.

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Tonight, I had a conversation with my sister in law about how we are ultimately replaceable in this capitalist system. It’s a simultaneously sad and paradoxically liberating idea to explore. I literally replaced the person who I just wrote a recommendation for, and have seen every job I’ve ever held replace me, time and time again. In some ways, there are ineffable ways we carry and do our work, and I am grateful to have—for the most part—work that is aligned with my purpose and passion, which is what has kept me in the same organization for so long, even as I’ve shifted roles to keep that at the forefront. I’ve seen some of my biggest heroes and mentors come and go, usually on their own volition, sometimes not, but there is always someone to replace them.

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As I have been reflecting on the themes I am inviting into this New Year, a few have come up that I’m chewing on to work with for creating intentions around: Enoughness, evolution, and irreplaceability in the places where I am actually irreplaceable.

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The first exploration of enoughness is about delighting in enough. In recognizing I have enough. I am enough. Remembering that comparison always puts me in a shame spiral. It’s why I’m off social media with the exception of Substack, which isn’t even on my phone because I refuse to get into a habit of checking it without intentionality. As I was reflecting on the idea of New Years intentions, I got a heavy pit in my stomach in remembering the political scenario in coming days, and thought that I should create some kind of intention related to pushing back against the incumbent regime, which is precisely why I’m not. I’m no longer interested in “shoulds.” Enoughness is enough. Because I am enough, I trust that I will respond to whatever is to come with a grounded force of enough because my life, my community, and my family is enough, and worth fighting for.

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I love Andrea Gibson’s poem Wellness Check, where they write:

In any given moment,
on any given day
I can measure 
my wellness 
by this question:

Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
            who isn't loving me?

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Tonight, our family attended a Hannukah event at Hannah’s parents house. At the end of the night, Jonah went up to every guest and gave them a hug, unprompted. As parents, we are trying to be intentional about ensuring there is no forced affection, and hilariously found ourselves unpacking this on the drive home, concerned that we might have unintentionally contributed to this happening. Yet, we came to the conclusion that it was completely on his own volition because he is sweet and loves hugs right now. What a delight. It is enough.

Hannah and I have been building more intentional community in our lives; we’ve had more of our trans and nonbinary parent friends over for events and potlucks, we’ve built more intentional events for some of our original Boulder friend group, and we’ve been more recently involved in discovering our local Unitarian Universalist community. Community feels abundant right now, and like the result of seeds we’ve planted seasons ago. It is enough.

I believe that there are invisible forces that are holding back the walls of water for our liberation; they’ve always been there. Sometimes we are those forces. We are enough. We are more than enough.

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As I explore this idea of enoughness, I’m also exploring the simultanous ideas of evolution and irreplaceability, as a means to an understanding of the places where I am fully irreplaceable. In the midst of some major grief and loss last spring, I had a realization that I was not finding joy in my career at the time, and I was not interested in doing anything that didn’t yield greater joy. Earlier last winter, I started getting involved in a parent group for queer and trans parents, and realized immediately that having that community specifically, made me feel like the beginning of spring when the ice starts to melt, and you can see the water moving below. The infusion of a new community that felt like mine shook something up, jostled just enough of my stuckness that I remember creating a construct where my identification with “success,” had nothing to do with a job. I have cognitively believed this, but have doubted it in my cellular awareness. There wasn’t a logical line of reasoning of how this began to shift, just the impact and power of community, and perhaps the magic of queers as tricksters and disrupters of broken systems: All we have is each other. We are not our job titles, or whatever cloaks of capitalism and comfort we’ve traded our identities underneath for.

In this exploration of irreplaceability, I’ve come to understand that:

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The only places I am truly irreplaceable are with my family and my chosen community.

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This has major implications for how I use my time and energy, and how I make decisions around my time and energy. This doesn’t mean I’m going to slack off at work, or be disconnected from anyone outside of those who I’ve deemed a part of my chosen community. However, I am realizing the truth that at the end of my days, I will not wish I had worked more hours. I will still strive for excellence at work, but my priorities are drastically shifting, and it will not occupy my precious time outside of it. My family matters more, and so does my community. I am evolving to explore and try to find the balance of meaningful work and excellence, and that as “enough,” even if there is a long list of made up “coulds,” “shoulds,” and places where I’ve told myself the story that I’ve missed the mark.

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What matters is how I use my irreplaceable time in the places where I am irreplaceable.

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My last visit with my family in Iowa was a delight. Nothing major has changed, I just noticed it. I allowed more of the ice to melt into the waters below. My mom walked into a Thai restaurant in Des Moines and made an instant connection with a baby and a new family traveling to Kansas City. That kind of thing used to drive me crazy, but instead I decided to bask in her ability to find community everywhere. She modeled it for me. She makes the best eggs with a specific Ayurvedic spice blend that Hannah convinced me I may not want to use because I’m probably a different dosha. The ridiculousness of that last sentence is a delight. It is enough.

My sister, Gretchen, had Covid, and I made a joke that her with Covid is her and I on the same energetic wavelength because she typically is a whirling dervish on a clock that never stops. We took a walk, and she let me vent about some things that were stressing me out that I don’t even remember anymore. We ended up walking through Maharishi International University and into one of the random buildings and looked at the architecture. A delight. It is enough.

I had an extensive conversation with my oldest sister, Coral, about the intersection of trans identity and neurodivergence. A door opened. It is enough.

My 8 year old nephew gave me a hug when I asked him if he wanted a high five, or a hug, or an ET phone home, and he chose the hug. It is enough.

On my last day in Iowa, I got to hug my dad, and he whispered poetic words into my ear that I couldn’t make out with the onset of advanced Alzheimer’s. But at the end, he said: “Thank you, Thank you.” It is enough.

These are the places and spaces where time is irreplaceable. It is more than enough.

Dayenu.

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