Late Night Literacy Regrets

Even tossing away old adult literacy files seems momentous.  Will I ever get over this vocation that led my life for so many years, that has me so conflicted when I dip a toe into it’s same old helplessness and hopelessness?

So glad not to be in those conversations and meetings anymore.

So sad that after all this work, it is still only the very small victories celebrated.

I know there were successes, coach, but here are some things to get off my literacy chest:

• I regret never having time to develop the low level Driver’s License curriculum so they don’t have to have the test read to them and can drive themselves to work.
• I regret that I never got to make the perfect speech about adult literacy – only sad missives that failed to capture the complex heart of the issue and failed to move people.
• I regret that I didn’t work and research adult education in Canada – the topics from their research conferences are vastly more interesting than U.S. ones.
• I regret the 2 negative feedback comments I got from the conference I did present in Canada.
• I regret that my hair looks like shit in the BCM annual report from 2001.  They were supposed to be taking pictures of the adult education programs.  I kid you not, on the inside cover -me (pasty white) and Crystal (African American) leaning in towards each other in front of a US flag.
• I regret that I never worked to realize the fun idea of a literacy float in Mardi Gras parades.

There are many more regrets from this past life, but I’ve wasted enough time.  These are the ones that just floated through my wrinkled brow on their way out to the place where all purposeless paperwork goes…