In mid-September, I was knee-deep in a few readings, one for each class I had taken this fall. The readings ranged from dead white men (think Durkheim, Marx, et. al.) to the history of education, all so compelling that, for a time, I could isolate the words on the page from the specter of death, fascism, and impending doom. A global pandemic laid waste to bodies and souls by the thousands around the world. By that time, we crossed 200,000 persons dead. The United States government, specifically the Trump administration, preferred doing nothing to mitigate these passings while the figurehead teed up white golf balls and white blow horns over and again. Governments across the country doubled down on inequity, leaving the responsibility of basic survival to food banks, philanthropy, and hopeful appearances on daytime news programs. Businesses closed, some temporarily, some forever, all while citizens kept their masks off in disbelief that science – and not social media conspiracy theorists – might get us through this.

Schools opened and closed, too. Fighting ensued in either direction because we didn’t clearly map the plan out. And, for the first time in 15 years, the reopening of schools didn’t include me as a staff member anymore. So I read.

There were a few running themes in my studies thus far, most pervasive among them is that the choices we think we’re making are controlled before we make them. In other words, this is the life that chose us. In 2020 alone, I had evidence all around me suggesting as much. I couldn’t have chosen the tragedies and sorrow happening all around me: the ten sirens on average blaring outside my apartment building, the colleagues and peers who passed away for simply breathing their workplace air, the students who stayed on our virtual classrooms while their parents, cousins, and friends perished, the callous abnormality around us.

Yes, all is not lost. But nothing is won until we recognize what it took to win.

This year helped me shed renditions of me that no longer served my purpose. I created homemade videos and Instagram Lives for my students and other community members to learn math from me. EduColor as an organization reorganized to better match and respond to the demands of our moment, where only a few months prior we were told we couldn’t be better. I set harder social boundaries this year, which allowed me to be more open to developing deeper friendships and mentor others. I also took on more speaking, more writing, and more web design work than I have in years. I’m on the national board of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. I got to tell Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro how much I appreciated them in Brooklyn face-to-face before we stopped taking face-to-face for granted.

Now, instead of teaching students in the Heights, I’m reading and writing research with my students in mind.

Wendy fought valiantly against cancer and only lost time. Rameer and I never got to meet, but he was a solid brother in the Blackest way possible. Kobe’s career spanned my fandom and my students’ too. John organized so we could attempt to defeat a more visceral racism via ballot. Chadwick made dignity and pride in us a core tenet of his work. Erika was my first kiss. Jas captured every room she walked into. Bill’s voice is a celebration, a mourning, or a romance every time you hear it. Daniel rhymed with superior ease and only told us he passed two months after he did. Vicente serves shots of tequila and made some of the best burritos I’d ever tasted.

COVID didn’t take all of them, but this life did. I wouldn’t have chosen for the world to lose them.

This life asked me to appreciate what I’ve been given because, in a minute, this life and all its accouterments could be stripped from me. I’m from the hood. This is not new. My family is alive. I get to study, to write, and to push our narrative during times I had no access to back when I was a full-time classroom teacher. I still pay rent, buy groceries, and, make breakfast (almost) every morning. I still find ways to believe in people and tell them as much over video, text, and e-mail. I’m still hoping that we’ll all see each other face-to-face and that we’d learn every lesson possible from an era that seeks to sledgehammer every wall we call “society.”

But I’m studying at Columbia University with 15 years of experiencing teaching in a hood reminiscent of the neighborhood I grew up in. My child attends the very schools I wish to see fully funded. I march closer to the greatness that people saw for me with my ancestors new and elder in tow. I’m not the Secretary of Education many of you said I’d be, but I’m in a position to love and lead as I haven’t been in years.

If there were ever a choice, then the life I live now is closer to it. Hope.