Where I've Been

(and where this is going)

If you’ve been wondering why things have gone quiet here over the past few months…
there’s a simple answer.

I’ve been in the classroom.

Five classes a day.
Three lesson plans, every day.
Teaching, grading, adjusting, trying again.

There’s a kind of full-body presence required for that work that doesn’t leave much space for writing. And if I’m honest, I didn’t want to write about this experience while I was still in the middle of learning how to live it.

So I went quiet here…
so I could be fully present there.

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But something happened recently that made me realize it’s time to start writing again.

And to do that, I need to go back a bit further than I have before.

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A Tale of Two Launches

I used to think my story began when I left engineering to become a teacher.

But that’s not actually where it started.

It started in a NASA boardroom.

Sitting in Washington, D.C., being briefed on the Artemis mission.
The kind of work I had spent my entire career preparing for.

It should have felt like the pinnacle.

But underneath it, there was a quiet question:

Who are we doing this for, really?

Not long after, I watched a Delta Heavy rocket launch from a couple miles away.
The force of it was overwhelming, you could feel it in your chest, your bones.

And looking back now, I think that was the moment something shifted.

I could feel the energy of the rocket clearly…

but I had lost touch with where my own energy was going.

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That experience stands in contrast to something much simpler.

A while ago, I woke up at 3am during a lunar eclipse.
I set up a recliner in my backyard and watched the Earth’s shadow slowly move across the moon.

Quiet. Still. Full of wonder.

The next day, I brought that moment into the classroom and asked my students a simple question:

Where is outer space?

Most said “up.”
A few said “above the Kármán line.”

I told them:

We’re already in outer space, riding it out in the most incredible spaceship imaginable.

That moment felt alive in a way the rocket launch didn’t.

And that difference has stayed with me.

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The Moment That Brought It Together

This past weekend, I attended a songwriting workshop with Carrie Newcomer.

About twenty people.
Three hours of her sharing how she writes and sees the world.

I sat down, opened my “special occasion” notebook,
the one that’s supposed to hold my journey, but has turned into a bit of a mess.

And when I flipped it open…

I landed on the page.

The first, and only, poem I’ve ever written and shared.

A poem inspired by her.

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At the break, I had the chance to share it with her.

I tried to read it out loud… but couldn’t get through it.

Too much emotion.

So she read it herself, to our table.

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There’s something hard to explain about that moment.

Hearing someone read back to you
a piece of yourself that they unknowingly helped bring into existence…

It felt like a loop closing.

Or maybe opening.

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What I’m Starting to Understand

For a long time, I thought purpose was something you found
in a big moment.

A launch.
A title.
A milestone.

But what I’m starting to see is something different.

The big moments can feel hollow
if they’re not aligned with what you actually care about.

And the small moments,
a conversation, a question, a classroom, a quiet night under the sky,
can feel deeply meaningful when they are.

The difference between those two experiences isn’t the scale. It’s the alignment.

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What This Space Will Be

So as I return to writing here when the final bell of the school year rings, this is what I want this space to become:

Not a highlight reel.
Not polished conclusions.

But an ongoing exploration of:

• What is mine to do?

• How to live with attention instead of autopilot

• What it looks like to walk toward suffering, not away from it

• And how small, intentional moments can shape a life more than big external achievements

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I don’t have clean answers.

But I’m starting to trust the process a bit more.

To pay attention to what feels quietly alive…

and to follow that.