My Santa Fe Summer

There’s a strange look people give you when you say you’re teaching middle school over the summer. It’s somewhere between admiration and disbelief, as if you’re either a saint or you’ve completely lost your mind. Neither is exactly true.

This summer, I moved to Santa Fe to teach 7th grade writing at Breakthrough, a nonprofit that serves high-potential students from historically underserved communities, many of whom are the first in their families to envision college as part of their future. It’s not a summer camp. It’s a full school schedule with homework, essays, and real stakes. I came in thinking I was ready. I wasn’t.

When I first got the offer, I actually had another option. A summer internship at home in Arizona that would’ve been familiar, safe, and, honestly, easier. But Breakthrough offered something I knew I couldn’t get anywhere else: real, hands-on classroom experience. Not just observing from the periphery or assisting with worksheets, but actually being the teacher. So I pushed myself and took the leap. I didn’t know anyone going. I didn’t know anything about Santa Fe. But I said yes anyway.

My friends and I joked about it when I committed “Woooo Santa Fe summer!!” Because wtf was I doing in New Mexico? It felt random and funny until it wasn’t. As the start date got closer, the panic started to set in. I was actually going to move to a new state, live in a dorm with strangers, and teach full time. Suddenly, it didn’t feel silly and spontaneous; it felt terrifying.

The panic started immediately. I arrived a week late to training and was dropped into orientation sessions full of routines and acronyms that might as well have been a new language. Everyone else seemed to know exactly what they were doing, while I was still trying to figure out what a “Do Now” was and how to use the big printer without asking for help. In our first team meeting, I stared down at my notes, pretending to follow along, when in reality I didn’t even know what “SAY-SEE-DO” meant. I felt like I was in over my head, already behind, surrounded by people who seemed smarter, more prepared, more… teacher-y.

In the beginning, it felt like everything was uphill. I had no idea what I was doing, I didn’t know the other teachers, and I didn’t feel like I belonged. The other fellows weren’t necessarily people I would’ve gravitated toward in my daily life, but over time, they became the ones I relied on most. The days were long, and more often than not, we felt like we were making it up as we went. That uncertainty had a way of uniting us together, and sometimes all you could do was laugh at the absurdity of it all. And in a summer that demanded so much, that kind of camaraderie made the work feel possible.

And then came the teaching.

After the first day, I called my mom sobbing. Not misty-eyed. Sobbing. I told her I couldn’t do it, that I was overwhelmed, underprepared, and out of my depth. I had walked into a room of kids looking at me like I had the answers, and I barely knew what I was doing. My mom, in her typical blunt-but-loving way, told me I was being dramatic and to pick myself up by my bootstraps. Not what I wanted to hear. But not wrong either.

If you’ve never taught before, it’s easy to imagine it as performance; standing at the front of a room, delivering content, keeping order. But the real work is quieter and far more demanding. It’s the sustained presence of showing up, fully, attentively, every single day, for students who are constantly assessing whether they can trust you, whether you will listen, whether you will still be there tomorrow. Teaching is the most difficult work I’ve done, not because of any single challenge, but because of the unrelenting demand it places on your mind, your emotions, and your sense of self. Some days I left the classroom feeling as though I had given everything and still fallen short. And yet, the work didn’t end when the final bus left. I’d spend evenings on the phone with a student, walking through a paragraph line by line, not because I had to, but because care in this context isn’t transactional. It’s not measured in hours logged, but in the willingness to stay in it alongside them.

In those first few weeks, I had to actively choose a positive mindset every morning. I'd tell myself: “I’m lucky to be here. This is an incredible opportunity.” And I believed it (most of the time.) Still, I couldn’t help but think of my friends in more exciting places like New York, having the kind of summer you picture in your twenties: rooftops, weekend trips, late nights. My days looked different. I was falling asleep working on lesson plans and waking up before sunrise to make last-minute changes, knowing they might still shift once the day began. It was a trade-off I felt every day, giving up the easy summer for one that was harder, but would matter in ways I couldn’t yet name.

But something shifted midway through the summer. I stopped having to force gratitude. It wasn’t a mantra anymore. It was real. I was grateful to be in this place, with these kids, doing this work. The panic faded, and something softer took its place: a sense of purpose, of presence, of being exactly where I was supposed to be.

I cared more than I thought I could. Enough to say “Love you!” at the end of every class and make my students say it back; sometimes with eye rolls, sometimes with grins, but always with at least a little sincerity. Enough to feel a ridiculous amount of joy when they argued over who got to sit next to me at lunch, like we were all in middle school together. Enough to tuck their stories into the back of my mind and carry them home with me, and hold their highs and lows as if they were my own. These were the moments that made every early morning and long night worth it, walking into a room full of brilliant, chaotic, hilarious kids who reminded me every single day why this work matters.

Santa Fe gave me space to soften, to slow down, and to feel part of something bigger than myself. The mountains, the quiet walks home, the summer rain, all made it easier to breathe when the work felt heavy and reminded me I was exactly where I needed to be. It brought me back to a simpler version of myself, the one who doesn’t have all the answers but keeps showing up anyway, and taught me what it’s like to be tired in a way that’s earned. This wasn’t the kind of summer where you come back glowing and well-rested; it was the kind that builds something deeper, a kind of grit, a kind of love.