It is 4am and I am ready to walk on a new day.
In 36 hours I will be travelling back to the UK, ready for the usual emotional showdowns, largely with myself.
I worked hard for three months, perhaps four, to put in place systems that make life easier for me and others next year.
Bingo barrier has now finished.
The cosplaying chav has taken the circus to another kingdom.
I am ready to step off that sand filled plane, command the legions of my mind, and feel the thighs strengthen with trust.
Yesterday during our academic awards I spoke with our departing students. Much emotional energy has been given - perhaps lost? - in the nurturing of those students.
The pause now is problematic. I am used to burning with righteous intensity.
Listening and reading is the plan now.
Write, my son.
I told myself do no do too much.
Today is the last stretch of completing culture-building tasks. Weariness spreads from my stomach to my chest because I have walked to my limits. Little excess energy remains in my body. Only a minimum level of rest has been enjoyed.
Why am I tired? I challenged myself to rebuild our KS4 curriculum. I did it. It required hard and skilled work. With AI to guide me via expert books, I did it. Driven by similar feelings I had in Dubai those yeas ago, I did it.
This journey of completion reminded me what it is to be a student again. Let's say I had fifteen poems to complete. The first took me many hours of refining and making. The last took me less than 25 minutes. The cycle finished strong, my expertise improving and refining each time.
I feel confident that my work and leadership next year is more prepared than ever before. Prepared means freer.
The cost of this journey is significant, though. My emotional and social life has shrunk somewhat in the demands of this length and intensity. My partner has been understanding.
That I travelled so far and fast for so long motivated me to finish. I return from a dimension of monastic intensity to the low plains of school life. That is fine. I do not suffer emotive spikes as perhaps I once did. I am happy with low emotional spikes, an embering fire in me now.
Today I lead an exhibition with many visitors. I do not know how this might work exactly, but I have enough ideas, and enough plans. And I hope courage and thinking leads my heart to guide my mouth.
It is an excitement to be leading this workshop today in front of so many.
To see how far I have come pleases me. I thought from a young age that my 40s is when I would step into these positions.
My fitness is returning. To sit in my imagination should be my next ambition.
