Leora looks back on the life she’d imagined versus the one she has led: dreams of world travel, becoming a teacher for special-needs children along the way, while living a mother’s journey through hardship. Even in poverty and struggle, she’s discovered unexpected resilience and help from friends and strangers, when least expected.
The years have taught her resilience, though sometimes it feels like a lonely resilience against forces who put her in an unwanted isolation, although she has the keys to her own rental house. She reflects on the friendships that faded, on people who couldn’t understand her need to retreat, to heal in her own way. People often mistake her quiet strength for distant indifference or even arrogance, not realizing the depths of feeling she carries. Even now, she hears whispers of others’ judgment but chooses inner peace over their approval. Her cottage is a sanctuary, though she can’t help feeling like it’s also her fortress.
Learning should be an exploration, not a cage in the form of a classroom which needs to be controlled or a limited playground, surrounded by fences. Education should nurture curiosity, not just accomplishments. May you learn in the fields, the forests, from the little and big animals around you and wise elders who take care of you, gathering real knowledge from the world itself.
My Vision 