Validation - and not the parking kind

So I recently found out I had been nominated for an "excellence in teaching" award and, if I so chose, I could put together the requisite paperwork and documents and statements to further my case that I am, indeed, a "teacher of excellence." This due diligence entails gathering sufficient data, in the form of a current vitae, a statement of my teaching "philosophy" (which is at it's root an oxymoronic term for me, as I see a "philosophy" is something you think and "teaching" as something you engage in - so a "teaching philosophy" is at odds with itself in nature since they can exist one without the other), sample syllabi, student evaluations, peer evaluations and optional "letters of support."
Sigh.
I now know why a nominee can either choose to accept the nomination or decline - it's a "metric buttload" (to quote my friend Dave) of work just to seemingly prove that which has been established by, well, acclamation in the form of nomination. And then when you don't get it (as I did not last year with said nomination in place), it is an introduction to self-query in the form of wondering who the hell out there is really doing more??
However... this go-around on the road to self-induced purgatory of "I am just happy to be nominated!" has been entirely different for me. I decided this time around to solicit letters of support - something I did not do last year for some odd reason (probably something to do with time constraints and ...?). At any rate, I sent out a sort of mass email plea to various students and colleagues alike, asking for their support. What I got back was an unsuspected, overwhelming wave of "HELL YES!" What started out as a quiet, back-door, simple "ask" became the most meaningful event in my life this year. What has come back to me, come pouring in, has been eye-opening, tear-inducing, thought-provoking and overall mind-bending. Things I have said and done and engaged in and striven for - which up until this moment I had thought had gone unnoticed in the wash of my own daily struggles had been noticed, had made a difference and had actually touched the lives of my students and my colleagues in ways I was too self-centered to even acknowledge. In the outpour of letters I learned that specific days and moments and slips of the tongue had been taken in, regarded and assimilated into the lives of the very young people and peers I had thought my voice was lost upon. I thought I had been shouting into a well, and all along I have been singing into a megaphone - and the message has been broadcast to places and people I had not even considered. My heart is warmed and my life's purpose re-affirmed: I do make a difference. I am a part of a bigger project. I want to do this for the rest of my life.
I encourage every person to ask for letters of support in their lives - no matter if there is an "award" pending or not. It's the same concept of having a living wake: why do we wait until it's too late, until we are too tired or decimated by living, until we are benumbed by the ego wars around us and simply give in to the inertia of not asking for what we need to truly understand that we make a difference to those around us and beyond? Why do we wait for some excuse - like promotion or age or death - to allow those around us to give back to us that which we have given to them? Conversely, why do we withhold our praise and love and compliments until it is an "occassion" or asked of us?
Go now. Go and send that email or that letter or that (dreaded) facebook wall posting to someone who has made a difference to you. I have a stack of unexpected letters sitting here, letters from students and colleagues who came out of "the woodwork" to support me in a basically unachievable award (too many nominees, not enough...) and I don't give a damn whether I "win" or not. I have already won. I have the support and admiration of people I haved loved, mentored, cared about, taken time for, pushed, frustrated, angered, provoked and made laugh to remind me that what I have devoted my life to is truly worth it.
Even if you have to make up an award or an event - do it. We should all be this open and giving to each other at all times.