I'm going to switch gears a little, for a momentary sort of tribute. One of my high school teachers, Heidi Rickard, is leaving teaching to follow some pretty spectacular dreams. I'm very excited for her to start her new adventure, but it is quite sad to know that future generations of PCHS won't know that "Kepler kept saying eliptical orbits", or that you can learn all about Rome by simply adding the most disgusting combination of food products to a blender, or that a classroom with lamps and a couch is SO much better than one without them, and the list goes on and on. So I thought I'd take a break from my daily rambling to talk about a pretty special lady who impacted me more than she may know.
10 Lessons I learned in room 502:
1. The almighty cup:
Oh the almighty cup. The cup is essentially your life in a cup. It's what you carry around with you every day, and you decide what you keep in that cup. So let's say you're at a party, lots of people in a room, and you've got this cup. It's full of nasty, rotten, depressing goop, and you run into someone who has a relatively lovely cup with some lemonade in it. When you bump into them, their lemonade is filled with your goop, and now, their cup is pretty gross. Now let's say instead of "goop", you've got a pretty rotten mood, and that lemonade was a very great day. By unloading on this person sipping their day full of lemonade, you just turned their lemonade into some pretty rotten lemons. I took this lesson to heart, and try so hard not to "spill" my cup on anyone. You don't know what's in someone else's cup, so don't unload your crud on them. Be careful not to take out your rotten day on someone who had nothing to do with it, or you'll find yourself in a fight that didn't need to happen in the first place, and in the process, ruin someone else's day as well. So instead of carrying around "goop" carry around kindness. Being positive means your cup is positive, so when your day spills into someone's cup, it means it will be filled with lemonade instead of lemons. It's a lesson I constantly have to remember....BE POSITIVE, no FUOs (instead of "cheerios"), be the best version of yourself!
2.The damn Erasers:
If I could go back in time to any lesson in Life 101, it would NOT be this one. This was the worst (and best) lesson ever to hit my life. It's one I still use to this day, considering I have some of these lovely "erasers" on my mirror giving me tiny reminders of my attitude. It started with the big pink eraser which was all about evaluating situations and working through them. And then there came the little erasers that KICKED MY BUTT. They were the little erasers you would put on your pencil when you were 5, and they became my worst enemy and also the most effective tool in my life. A few that I remember vividly (but wish I didn't) were the flower, the frog, and the tooth.....oh man. The frog was "hop to it" which I still keep on my mirror to remind me to get with it. But the dreaded flower and tooth....The flower was "pick through it" and the tooth was "talk about it". I vividly remember these being thrown at me walking into the room. I hated these little pieces of rubber, until I realized they were exactly what I needed. I didn't really use them until after I left Life 101, but they have impacted how I deal with literally every situation in my life. Picking through it, talking about it, and getting after it are my three steps to figuring out pretty much everything in my life. It's amazing what you learn as a 14 year old can still be with you nearly 10 years later at 23....3. ARFF and the wheels of life:
ah the ARFF lesson. The 4 wheels of your life. Achievement, Respect, Fun, and Freedom. I've done another post about this, but essentially they are how you should balance your life. You should never have too much or too little of any of these things. But you also shouldn't use them as punishment either. If one isn't full, don't see it as something you didn't deserve, think of it as something that was missing and go find it! It's part of filling that cup positively. I used to keep an ARFF journal, and every day I would write down what was fulfilled in each area, so that I could feel amazing and FULL all the time, it was wonderful. Filling your ARFF is essential to being positive, and finding that hope I was searching for!4:Colors, and being the brightest you can be:
The color test was one of the first things we did when I joined Life 101. The colors are orange, blue, gold, and green. I won't go into the meanings of each, because that isn't what I took away from this lesson. What I took away was that I needed to embrace every color, no matter how strong it was in my personality, I needed all four to be complete. My bubbly personality, but loving and giving personality, my loyalty, and my curiosity. I needed all of it, and though I was pretty electric orange as Wendy used to call me, I needed to embrace and live them all, and I have. Being electric orange all the time is exhausting, but so is being bright blue, and letting in a little gold and green sometimes is a good balance, and a lot less tiresome!
5. Never stop figuring out who you are:Dreams change. Period. So figure out where your heart needs to be and get there! I wanted to be a music teacher so bad it hurt, but it took me a while to realize that there were a few different paths I could take and be happy, as long as I got to live out my dream of having a family of my own in the process. That dream is coming true. Will I be a teacher? Hopefully someday. Will it kill me if I'm not? Heck no! I would rather (someday) be a wife and a mother than EVER have that teaching degree. I worked my butt off and struggled so much, and all the while God was saying "chill, I've got this"... and then I met Wade. Oh if I'd only listened sooner! So I'm making my real dream come true, and realizing that some things are not worth giving up my dream.
6. Level 10 converstations hurt, but are totally worth it:
The couch in room 502 and the lodge at Bear Trap Ranch help quite a few level 10 conversations that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Level 10 hits you deep in your heart. You battle with things you have refused to confront for a very long time, and you are overcome with epic amounts of emotion. But these conversations leave your heart so full and loved, and though they totally suck at the moment you're having them, they will stick with you for a lifetime and will change your heart so amazingly. Level 10 is totally worth the immediate pain for the lifetime of healing that comes from it!
7. Sometimes you just need to get kicked out of your drawer:
This is a very long story, and if Rickard is reading this she knows exactly what I'm talking about. Essentially, I was kicked out of my drawer in room 502. I'm sure Rickard would describe it a little differently, but that's basically what happened. Oh but the lesson that came from it. I was hooked on this amazing room 502, I pretty much lived in it. I even had a drawer where I kept my things, and one day after school towards the end of my sophomore year, I was evicted. I was heartbroken. I didn't talk to Rickard for probably a good two weeks. One of my friends tried with all of his might to force me to talk to her, but I was just too angry, and felt so unloved. UNTIL, I realized I was being an idiot. Rickard evicted me because she loved me oh so very much. She hated seeing me stifled by the bubble of 502, and this was how she got through to me. It all started repairing with a note. I came in after school with a note I had written, not a word said. And the next day after school I got a note that I still have and read every once and a while to feel inspired, and a book called You Are Special with this note inside. It was a lesson I need every year at least once, where I pull out this book and this note and remember I am God's tool, and He needs to guide me. He has a plan and I need to listen and follow Him. I am special to Him and I was created for a purpose, and that purpose is exactly what I need to do!
8. Conversations with your eyes are way better than ones with words:
A frequent occurance in this room 502 was "eye conversations". These little conversations had not a single word in them, and were some of the most important ones I've had to this day. Rickard, and a few particular people, would have eye conversations with me. When they knew exactly what I was thinking, and I knew exactly what they were thinking, and more words were said in silence than could ever have fit in a conversation. The power of eye conversations astonishes me to this day, and I wouldn't replace them for the world.
9:Be inspired, and let your life echo!
Our sophomore year we had a project for the renaissance lesson. And it was one that will forever be dear to my heart. Rickard asked us 3 questions. The biggest one being what will echo after you're gone? What will your legacy be? This question still resonates with me every time I make a life changing decision. How can I impact the world with this new path? It is something that constantly inspires me, and hopefully this little blog of finding hope will echo with a few people! I decided the biggest thing I want to echo is God's love. If I can make that echo forever in the lives I encounter, I will be a happy girl!10. Sit on a couch and fix it:
This one is a little complicated. This couch was unavoidable. At one point in my relationship with Rickard, we had a little fall out. I won't go into all of what happened, but I avoided room 502 like it was the plague (and I learned just how crazy the plague was in that room, so I knew!). I wouldn't even enter the room for fear that this amazing couch would suck me back in (which eventually it did, with a little help from Village Inn and a fabulous friend not minding his own business). The nice thing was, the few months I refused to be in the bubble of 502, I rediscovered who I was, found new friendships, and started becoming the person I am today. I needed a break from the bubble and the couch, and then once I had done some soul searching, I let that couch back in. But sitting on that couch and struggling through lessons of being a white life saver (*wink wink* Rickard), figuring out my life, and becoming a "grown up", became something I needed to do forever. This blog became my "couch". I sit and type, read my Bible and my study books, read articles, talk with friends, and I started finding the hope I was searching for. And everything I needed to do that came from learning how to sit and struggle on that couch in room 502. It was one of the hardest lessons I learned, and one that I didn't fully learn until after a few years of college. But all of the struggling was worth it to find this amazing hope that has been found with writing this blog and being with God on a very deep level.Though I learned a lot of lessons in room 502, these are some that will stick with me forever. I still cannot smile without seeing a white life saver, I will never throw away my binder from honors world history, rice is not just for eating
, and I will never look at a toaster the same way again. Some of these may not make a whole lot of sense, as I only touched on them. This wonderful lady has touched so many lives in her teaching journey, and I know that those hearts will keep her legacy going. Heidi Rickard was an amazing teacher, and an incredible mentor, and I cannot wait for her new adventure to start! Thank you for all you have done for so many kids at PCHS Rickard, we love you!
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