This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my sixth straight EduCon conference in Philadelphia, PA, a gathering that usually lands on or around my birthday. Unlike previous years, I decided to come on my own at the behest of folks I consider friends like Chris Lehmann, Diana Laufenberg, and the good folks at the Science Leadership Academy. For those unaware, Philadelphia public schools have been in turmoil as exemplified by asbestos discoveries in several schools across the system. So you can imagine the energy as I walked into EduCon – a conference normally hosted at SLA school – hosted at the Philadelphia School District offices. The Friday panel was on authenticity.

I’m glad I made it. I’m sure they’re glad it happened, too.

The panelists and moderator had a spirited and insightful conversation about schools, students, and what it means to show up as one’s fullest self. At one point, the moderator turned to the panelists and asked them if they had questions of each other. Crystal Cubbage of the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative turned to her co-panelists and asked: “What is your greatest challenge to being your authentic self?” The question pushed my attention away from the panel for a bit. It’s a question that seemed ripe for reflection after a year that felt like a decade.

If I’m truthful, I’ve only given 70-80% max to anyone outside of my immediate family since August. I’m still shaking off the absurdities of school years past. I’m still drawing hard boundaries for people in my past about the man I am now. I’m still having to edit and revise stories in real time about myself, hoping people will recognize my citations as evidence. I’ve had to change my practices on and offline where I seldom shout friends out on social media.

I had to stop being me so I could understand what “me” meant to everyone else. This makes me a lot more like my middle schoolers than I originally thought.

My superego tells me to never let go of my greatest, authentic, righteous self and to consistently extend myself to those who can’t pay me back. My id yells back, paranoid that those who might get shine from me will become empowered enough to disregard my efforts to elevate them. My id is angry at having to answer a million questions about who I am. My superego knows it comes from attempting to be a public figure of any nature. My ego sips his tea and keeps an eye out for vultures and bystanders all the same.

I have to protect myself from myself. Depression can do that to us, too.

Really, some of us believe we need to show our most authentic self wherever we go. Those of us from the hood understand how to “keep it real,” and also “when keeping it real goes wrong.” Those of us who’ve ever had to teach and/or lead know what it’s like to create a persona that doesn’t have to show up at home. Maybe our greatest challenge to being authentic is the environment in which we’re asked to do so. We either create environments where our best selves thrive or we center the spaces that already do.

While we’re still alive, maybe we owe it to ourselves to tell the people we love, whether close or afar, how much they mean to us. It keeps some of the challenges at bay.