The Fear of Waiting

The night before a huge event that you know is coming can be filled with a lot emotion. I remember so many nights before Christmas staying up whispering to my cousins as we tried to hear Reindeer and Sleighbells. The night before any first day of school was always alive with anticipation - good and bad - as I awaited the new adventures, stories, friends, struggles that the year would bring. The night before I went back to teaching after being gone for five weeks was like that. I think I slept two hours, my mind riddled with anxiety. Would I throw up? Would I be exhausted - who am I kidding - How exhausted would I be? What if there was a fight? What if there was another threat to the school? etc. etc. 

When I rolled out of bed the next morning, I was pretty mad at myself. If I could have just shut up my brain for like 30 minutes, maybe I would have gone straight to sleep. Maybe I would've even gotten good sleep! Now, I would never know, and the thirty minutes between waking and walking out the door were over in the blink of an eye.

A Tribute Part 6

Calling it Quits?

Now we're quickly approaching that point in time that I was dreading deeply. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am highly emotional. I cry at happy things. I cry at sad things. I cry when a song comes on the radio that reminds me of college, and now I miss college, and my friends, and when life was simpler. Heck, sometimes I just cry because it's been a while, and my body needs to cry. Naturally, I was dreading Easter (my due date). I didn't know how I would feel. Would I be okay? Would I break down? I knew I didn't want to forget. It couldn't pass by without significance. This was my baby. It mattered. No. Forgetting was not an option. 

I think the first time it really concerned me was on January 24th. I would have been seven months pregnant with only two months left to work before maternity leave. I walked around school and everything I saw seemed tinged grey (granted it was January) and everything I heard made me a little sad (again...it was January. January just seems to suck because the holidays are over). I was keenly aware of the different reality that could have been mine had we not lost Raphael.

Things at school were getting more stressful, more political, more challenging, and I felt that I was drowning. I even scratched out a poem comparing teaching to drowning at a meeting once. I was in a dark place. I was exhausted. I was miserable. I needed something to change. 

A Tribute Part 5

Pesky Tests

It's important to note that starting in August, I was teaching through all of this. At some points, it was helpful because it was a much needed distraction from my overly analytical mind. It was a way to make myself think of others instead of wallowing in self-pity. However, it also enabled me to avoid thinking about myself. Additionally, I had some of these fun little nuggets:

A 14-year-old boy was talking while I was giving directions, so I walked over for proximity control. When I arrived at his desk, I finished giving directions. After which, he takes his pencil and points at my belly and says "Look at that gut!" Folks, it was September. Remember when we talked about the right thing versus the easy thing? The easy thing would have been to snap that pencil in half and scream at him that I had just lost my baby - or simply run out of there crying. (Despite my hyper-emotional state, I did neither of those things).

Dealing with school on top of the miscarriage made it hard for me to know if I was unhappy because I was still recovering, unhappy because I was too stressed, unhappy because I hated my job, or unhappy for some other indeterminable reason because I was too busy trying to figure out which of the previous was making me unhappy.

Why am I here?

Well, here I am. I've graduated college, and now I'm on the other side.

There were so many times this summer when I sat down at my computer, and I tried to decide which part of my life I wanted to write about. SO much has happened this summer between training in Atlanta, celebrating my grandparents' 50th Wedding Anniversary, moving across state lines, and now training in the school system that I'll be teaching in. So much has happened.

So, I'm going to focus on what happened yesterday. Yesterday, we were asked to write our visions for our students and this school year. What this means in the education field is essentially a sentence or two about why you (and perhaps your students) are there. Essentially is the question: Why am I here?