After blogging about the hypomania that back-to-school season demands, I found myself living the reality of those words in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The carefully constructed routines that carried me through summer began to unravel under the weight of a new school year, household adjustments, and the beautiful chaos of family life.

But I’m learning the greatest breakthroughs don’t come when everything is working perfectly, but instead when we’re forced to rediscover what truly sustains us.

When the Song Finally Found Its Words

In April, during another challenging season, I’d started writing a song. It had a verse and chords for a bridge and chorus, but the words for the heart of it remained elusive. As often happens, my creativity flows strongest when I’m navigating intense emotions—whether in hypomanic states or in those valleys where I’m longing to feel that familiar interconnectedness with the world around me.

Thursday afternoon, after a particularly demanding week, I headed to Fort Monroe Beach for a sea glass stroll at low tide. With my ukulele in hand and the familiar rhythm of waves as my backdrop, I dusted off that unfinished song. This time, the words came:

“I will fail and I will fall
But then I’ll rise above it all
To be the best that I can be
You know I have a need to be
Free to fall and fail again”

There it was—the anthem I didn’t know I needed. Permission to be imperfect, to struggle, to have seasons where nothing seems to work quite right, and to trust that rising again is part of the design.

The Art of Seasonal Adjustment

This back-to-school transition has been a masterclass in adaptation. For a decade as a single teacher, I had the luxury of a perfectly controlled environment to return to each evening. My little bungalow in downtown Hampton was a sanctuary of hardwood floors, deep cherry furniture, and oriental rugs in the soft colors of Fort Monroe Beach. Everything had its place, and I could direct all my post-school energy exactly where I needed it to go.

Now I navigate the beautiful complexity of family life—the socks that migrate to unexpected places, the neon LED lights that brighten more than just the room they’re in, and the constant rhythm of caring for people I love deeply. It’s a different kind of sanctuary, one built not on controlled spaces but on shared love and mutual support.

The adjustment isn’t without its challenges. Sleep cycles that worked perfectly for one now require coordination of two. Routines that once flowed seamlessly now need negotiation and flexibility. Still, I’m beginning to understand that sanctuary isn’t just the physical space we return to; rather, it’s the presence we carry with us and the grace we extend to ourselves during seasons of change.

The Professional Empathy Challenge

As someone who manages bipolar disorder while teaching, I’ve come to understand how my chosen career works both with and against the stability I seek. Each school year sounds a trumpet call to my empathetic nature, readying me to come to know, love, and invest in other people’s children. I take this calling seriously.

This year, I have 87 new lives entrusted to my care for the next nine months. Reading their diagnostic essays about what qualities will lead to their success, reviewing applications to join our classroom’s “Building Perceptions” company (an educational workroom model) where we learn to build and share our perceptions of the world—these moments remind me why the seasonal disruption is worth it.

The challenge lies in riding their emotional highs and lows while attempting to keep my moods in neutral. It’s a balancing act of epic proportions, and I’m committed to figuring out how to do it better tomorrow and the day after that.

Finding Community in the Struggle

One of the most grounding experiences this week was attending my DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) meeting. Sitting in a Zoom room with others navigating anxiety, PTSD, depression, and bipolar disorder, I could be completely honest about how challenging this back-to-school season has been and hear other teachers with mood disorders validate me.

There’s something powerful about owning your struggles in community. When I shared how different this transition feels now that I have a family to consider, I wasn’t met with judgment but with understanding nods and shared stories. These connections remind me struggling doesn’t always mean failing—it means simply being human.

When Rest Finally Comes

Saturday morning brought a breakthrough. Tony, recognizing how the sleep disruption was affecting our entire household, orchestrated a day of restoration. We returned to Fort Monroe where I played my newly completed song for him while we searched for sea glass together.

That night, I slept eight hours straight for the first time in three weeks. Whether it was finding the right words for my song, the peaceful day together, or simply the accumulated effect of all our efforts to restore balance, something shifted. My body remembered how to rest.

Of course, the next morning’s 3am alarm reminded me that human efforts to manufacture perfect conditions are often temporary. But that’s okay. The song had already taught me what I needed to know: I’m free to fall and fail again.

The Constant in All the Variables

Everything around me changes with the seasons—the sunrise comes later, the routines shift, the household dynamics evolve. But I show up every morning at the water’s edge, and the God who orders all of this—the sunrises and the sea glass walks, the students in room 202, and the beautiful chaos of family life—remains constant.

It doesn’t matter how sideways things go between the sunrises because I count on the Lord to give me a fresh dawn, a reset on grace, and unlimited forgiveness. With Him, I’m free to fall and fail again, knowing that each stumble is part of a larger dance toward becoming who I’m meant to be. Fearfully, wonderfully, and bipolar-ly made me.

The Permission to Be Imperfect

This season is showing me true resilience doesn’t necessarily look like maintaining perfect stability; it looks more like developing the flexibility to bend without breaking. It’s about writing songs giving us permission to struggle while trusting we’ll rise again. It’s about finding sanctuary not just in controlled environments but in relationships that weather seasonal storms together.

The song doesn’t have a title yet, but the chorus is clear: we’re free to fall and fail again. In a culture that often demands perfection, especially from those of us managing mental health conditions, this feels revolutionary.

Maybe that’s the real gift of these difficult seasons—they strip away our illusions of control and invite us to trust something bigger than our ability to manufacture perfect conditions. They teach us that grace isn’t just for our big failures but for our daily struggles to balance it all.

As I prepare for another day with 87 sixth graders, another attempt at a restful night’s sleep, another sunrise that will come whether I’m ready for it or not, I’m carrying this permission with me: to be imperfect, to adjust, to fail and rise again.

After all, the best songs often come from the most unfinished places in our hearts.

What unfinished songs are you carrying? What permission do you need to give yourself to struggle beautifully while trusting you’ll rise again?