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I continue to return to Vilhelm Hammershøi’s White Doors because it offers a way of thinking about life that does not depend on momentum. There is no sense of urgency in the painting, no implied destination, no visible figure advancing toward fulfillment. Instead, there is orientation. The work is concerned with how one stands in relation to possibility, not how one conquers it. In this way, it mirrors my own relationship to change far more honestly than any narrative of ambition ever could.
I have never structured my life around goals. Goals imply foreknowledge: a belief that one can see far enough ahead to dictate the shape of one’s becoming. My experience has taught me otherwise. Life has unfolded through a convergence of preparation, loss, timing, and invitation. I believe in opportunity, but only insofar as one is prepared to meet it. Preparation, for me, has never been about positioning myself above others; it has been about learning systems deeply enough to act responsibly within them.
My pursuit of graduate education was never a clean expression of professional aspiration. It was entangled with personal upheaval, economic ceilings, and a genuine love of learning. Educational leadership became a language through which I could read institutions critically. It was my attempt at understanding how power moves, how decisions are made, and how harm is either reproduced or interrupted. This knowledge made me a better teacher, a more effective union representative, and a steadier advocate for students and colleagues. Leadership, long before it was formalized, was already present as a form of ethical literacy.
Now, circumstances have shifted in ways I did not plan but cannot ignore. I completed my doctorate last year. I will complete my Director of Special Education certification this summer. A trusted friend and supervisor is retiring at the end of the year. And beneath all of this lies a deeper structural change brought about by loss. Glenn Coltharp, Robin Hicklin, and Fred Frerer were all men who embodied for me what thoughtful, grounded professional adulthood could look like and they are now gone having shuffled off this mortal coil. My grandmother, whose quiet presence shaped my emotional landscape more than I ever fully articulated, died one month ago today. With their absence, the internal geography of my life has changed.
Philosophically, this is not a crisis of direction so much as a confrontation with succession. When mentors and elders die, they do not simply disappear; they are internalized. Their absence rearranges responsibility. One realizes, often reluctantly, that the figures who once stood ahead have now been left behind, and that the question is no longer who will guide me, but what will I carry forward that they shared with me. This is not ambition awakening; it is assumption. It is the assumption of weight, memory, and care.
Hammershøi’s White Doors gives form to this moment. The rooms are empty, but they are not vacant. They have been lived in. The doors are open, but they do not beckon theatrically. Light enters without promise. This is not the romance of possibility; it is the ethics of readiness. Administration, as I now understand it, belongs to this register. It is threshold work. It is the labor of holding space between individuals and systems, between past wisdom and future need. It is custodial rather than performative.
This orientation aligns with a belief I have long held and recently named more clearly through the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Planning is everything, plans are nothing.” Planning, in this sense, is not about fixing outcomes. It is about shaping judgment. It is the slow cultivation of discernment, restraint, and responsiveness. Plans dissolve the moment reality asserts itself, but the self shaped by planning remains capable of meeting what arrives. My education, my advocacy work, my patience, these were not steps toward a predetermined role. They were acts of preparation without guarantee.
For years, I have experienced myself as standing in the room, waiting for the right door to open. Not wandering. Not forcing. Learning the space. Understanding its architecture. Waiting without stagnation. That distinction matters. Waiting, in this sense, is not passivity; it is attentiveness. It is the refusal to confuse motion with meaning. Now, something has shifted. I no longer feel as though I am merely standing among doors. I find myself knocking.
Knocking is a profoundly ethical gesture. It asserts presence without entitlement. It acknowledges readiness without demanding recognition. Here, Revelation 3:20 enters the reflection not as doctrine, but as phenomenology: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” What strikes me is the reciprocity embedded in the verse. The one who knocks does not force entry. The one inside is not coerced. The encounter depends on attentiveness and consent.
This reframes my present moment with clarity. Applying for administrative positions is not an act of conquest. It is an invitation offered, a knock sounded, a willingness expressed. The door may open, or it may not. Either outcome preserves integrity. This is crucial. Readiness does not obligate the world to respond, and preparation does not entitle one to passage. To knock is to accept vulnerability without bitterness.
Placed alongside White Doors, the verse deepens the painting’s quiet authority. The rooms remain orderly. The light remains sufficient. Nothing is forced. Leadership, like faith in this sense, is relational rather than transactional. It is about entering shared space responsibly, or remaining where one is without resentment.
If the door opens, I will step through not as someone finally achieving a long-held ambition, but as someone answering a moment that has ripened through time, loss, and preparation. If it remains closed, I will still be someone who recognized the moment clearly enough to knock. That recognition itself feels like maturity.
Hammershøi’s restraint reminds me that life is not a corridor rushing toward destinations, but a series of inhabited rooms where readiness is cultivated long before movement occurs. I have been standing in the room. I have been listening. Now, I knock not to demand entry, but to acknowledge that I am present, prepared, and willing to receive whatever answer comes.
The door may open.
It may not.
Either way, I am ready.