In some ways, I guess it’s a little ironic that I saw Hamilton at the point in life I did — which was just recently — because I have been thinking a lot about my own legacy. One of the themes that runs throughout Hamilton is legacy. Alexander Hamilton shows us early on in the musical that he is concerned with his own legacy, even if he doesn’t say so in those exact words. He proclaims, “I am not throwing away my shot” when faced with opportunity to help the revolution. When he meets Angelica Schuyler and she inquires about his family, he declares that “unimportant” but goes on to say, “There’s a million things I haven’t done; just you wait.” He writes prolifically — it’s undeniable that he uses writing to help cement his legacy, which is part of what makes Eliza’s burning his letters in “Burn” so profound. She knows exactly what she’s doing to his legacy — she says, “You and your words, obsessed with your legacy, your sentences border on senseless, and you are paranoid in every paragraph how they perceive you…. I’m burning the memories, burning the letters that might have redeemed you.” Ultimately, we find that in the end, we are not really in control of our legacy, no matter how we try. This is made clear in the final song. Washington starts it off by telling us, “You have no control: who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” Eliza ends the song and the show with the haunting thought, “And when my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell my story?”
At least so it goes in the musical version of Alexander Hamilton’s life.
I wonder what my own legacy will be. When I express this to people, quite often I get the response of, “You’re a teacher. Your students are your legacy.” I get the references to Mr. Holland’s Opus. I get reminded about Dead Poet’s Society.
But I am not arrogant enough to fancy myself to be as influential as Alexander Hamilton, or even the fictional Mr. Holland or Mr. Keating. I’m just Renee.
All I want to do is know that when I’m dead and gone, my life mattered. My work mattered. I did something positive, something lasting, that what I left behind was a force for good in this world, that somehow the world changed even the slightest for the good because I was once here. I want to be remembered, even just for a little bit. I want a part of me to remain after I’m gone, just for a little while, just to show that my life was worth remembering. This is why I feel it so much when Hamilton says, “There’s a million things I haven’t done, just you wait.” I feel like there’s got to be a million things I haven’t done yet, either. I have no idea what they are, but just you wait. This is why I feel it so much when Eliza asks the questions I didn’t even know I was asking myself, “When my time is up, have I done enough? Will they tell my story?”
Maybe that’s why I write — few people know how much I actually write. I have this blog plus two others. I have diaries and journals and notes and poems and ideas and thoughts scribbled in notebooks and in journals and on scraps of paper. Maybe I believe that someone will find these papers when I’m gone and keep them, thus ensuring my legacy, keeping me alive beyond my life.
Maybe it is incredibly conceited of me to want a legacy. Maybe it means I’m insecure. Maybe it means I’m childish or selfish. But I sure do hope that when my time is up, I’ve done enough, and someone will think it’s worth it to tell my story.
Until then, just you wait.
I am cheating big time here today! I have struggled for the past few days to find something to write for the letter K and I just keep coming back to this one topic: Key West. 
I admit it, I’m a Parrothead. Have been for probably a good 20 years since my friends Sarah and Eric introduced me to this “way of life”. But as time has gone on, I have become a bit of a Jimmy Buffett snob. I’m sorry to say that I don’t necessarily want to spend big bucks to go to a concert and hear any of the following songs:
I have a pretty unorthodox and unpopular view of infidelity. I think my husband feels similarly, at least based on discussions we have had.
For Valentine’s Day, my husband got me tickets to go see Hamilton. My life has been forever changed by seeing that musical. I know that sounds completely silly, but I really like words, hence I appreciate things like novels, essays, short stories, poetry, and song lyrics. And Hamilton is filled with a lot of words that are masterfully put together to tell a richly detailed story.
I decided to write my post for the letter G about God. And I will start by saying that I believe in God. This might not be a really popular thing to say — even among people who do believe in God. And while I believe in God, I certainly don;t go around professing to to everyone (and I know some people would say that I should be going around professing it to help others, but I’m not going to do that).
It seems only natural to write about education considering I have been a teacher for almost 30 years. I graduated from college in December of 1989 and in January 1990, I took my first official teaching job. I took on a medical leave at my alma mater. It was a part time job, only teaching two class periods of junior level literature, but I couldn’t be more excited. I was a real teacher.
I hate to say it, but I am downright afraid of death. That’s probably not a popular thing to admit. I should probably say something like, “Death is inevitable. Death is just a part of life. Death will happen to all of us.” Or maybe the religious side of me should say, “There is nothing to be afraid of because there is an afterlife. You will be with God.”
I don’t know why the issue of consent is such a hot-button topic for me, but it is. Maybe it’s because I found myself a victim of sexual abuse twice in my life, once around age 13 or 14, another time when I was probably 9 or so. In both cases, it never occurred to me to say no or to tell the men to stop. When I was 9, I didn’t want to be rude to an adult. As a teen, I thought I had somehow led the guy on and so I had no choice but to follow through on what he wanted.
The View from the Cheap Seats 