The Poor Mom Revolution

I watched a Ted Talk a while back by Drew Dudley called Lollipop Moments. He spoke about a story where he had impacted someone else without even knowing it. That years later, he had been told that he changed this woman’s life with a single interaction that he had no recollection of having. The message resonated with me so much because small moments and seemingly minimal moments can be the ones with the greatest impact on others. Sometimes you’ll be told about them and other times you’ll never know the difference you made. I feel as though living through the motto, “treat others the way you want to be treated,” is as simple as it sounds. Being kind and respectful doesn’t take much and in turn can be a lightbulb moment for someone else.

I feel like I have a few lollipop moments in my life, but one of the earliest ones I can remember is from Middle School. I remember going into my language arts class being told that the teacher was strict, mean and hard. That you have to write every assignment, project and paper in cursive and she always gave ridiculous feedback and had red writing all over your paper. I remember being terrified because reading had never come easy to me and I always had to work a lot harder than everybody else. Boy were they wrong!

From the very first week I loved my teacher. She was consistent, had a routine, never raised her voice and told you exactly what she wanted. There was no guesswork. What you saw was what you got and it was where I thrived. It was where I fell in love with not only cursive in general, but found my love of writing. We did research papers, debated topics, wrote poetry and short stories. She gave feedback on everything I wrote, making me better and providing me with the knowledge that she didn’t skim, but read every single word I wrote and taught me how to make it better.

We had one of my favorite units on poetry. For me, poetry was a place where I was able to be raw and share parts of myself I hadn’t before. It was personal and came out so easily. I wrote about things that upset me and things that made me happy. At one point, I remember being called in the counselors office to explain my poetry. They thought the way it was worded meant I was in trouble, abused or a cry for help. I remember explaining at 14 years old that it was the way I felt on the inside sometimes and how I spoke to myself. My inner dialogue. It was at that moment I realized that it wasn’t a ‘normal’ way to think about yourself and I began to use my writing to journal and help get my thoughts and anxieties down on paper.

This teacher got me out of my comfort zone in so many ways and I remember joining her after school club of line dancing with a few of my friends. We’d move all the desks in the back of the room and laugh, dance and enjoy snacks before volleyball practice started. That year was the year I ultimately decided that I wanted to be a teacher and wanted to write whenever I could. I’ve journaled and wrote privately for as long as I could remember and owe a lot of my decision to start a blog to her. Sharing privately is one thing, but sharing out loud for the world to see is very different.

I continued to write and in my freshman year of high school, my poems were submitted for a state competition. They were published in the ‘Young Poets Speak Out’ anthology and I felt like I won the lottery. I still have the books to this day as it was the first time I had my writing in print!

One of the biggest lessons I learned from the Ted Talk is that when someone has made a positive impact on your life… they don’t even know it. I never got a chance to share my truth about the impact Mrs. McBurney had on me throughout my crazy middle school years or that she made me feel heard and seen when I didn’t feel like I was. I’ve attempted to look her up, but with no such luck. This is my way of sharing my truth and thanking her for being her.

We spend so much of our time going through the motions of the day. Trying to keep a routine, trying to make ends meet or simply surviving. We forget that every single moment has the ability to make a difference and impact on those around us. What’s your lollipop moments?