avoidance

It's true. I've been avoiding my blog. I'm not sure if it's because I'm too afraid to tell the truth, or I'm afraid I won't tell the truth. Maybe I don't even know what the truth is right now. Maybe I don't know anything.

Last week I finally met with my principal for a post conference. It wasn't scheduled. I had been composing a list in preparation for the meeting; a list of all the things I am responsible for as a teacher; a list that completely paralyzes me. I was up to a page and a half when she caught me in the office where I was checking my mailbox and said "do you have time right now?"

Deep breaths.

"How are you?" She asks me, all breezy like.
"I Am So Unhappy," I tell her.

And thus begins an hour long "conference" of how overwhelmed I feel, all the time, how stressed out, all the time, how I feel like little pieces of myself just abandon my body, all the time, as if those pieces just don't have room to fit anywhere and I'm just walking around existing as some fragmented version of myself.

"It never ends," I told her. "I cross something off the list, and there are ten more things to do and I just can't get to them. I'm behind in my Montessori coursework, I have a mountain of to go through, and I need to do a two week prep course to take a 4 hour licensure exam on a Saturday that I get to pay 130. bucks to take. I can't do it. I can teach Montessori, I know how to do that. It's all this other stuff: attendence incentives and guided reading groups and peace days and documentation of everything. FBA's and IEP's and DRA's ... I just can't ..."

She finally sighed and got to my evaluation, which was pretty much a rave review. I got more "exceeds expectation" than simply "meeting expectation," or whatever the gauge was.
"You are changing children's lives," she said. "You are changing FAMILIES lives," she said.

"That's great," I say, "but at what expense? I've been asking myself huge questions, like, is my heart too big, or not big enough? Do I live in service of other people, or do I live for myself?"

"I have a 50,000. student loan I'm paying back for a MFA in writing. And guess what? I don't write. I don't have time. I've gained 15 pounds in the past year, and I don't get to the gym. I live in the middle of nowhere. If I go to the gym, I get home at 7, and my husband is in bed by 8 since he get's up at 3:30 for work. I'm just not sure I want this to be my life," I ramble. "I'm 40 years old, I want to get pregnant, and the doctor says 'how much stress do you have in your life?' and all I can do in response is laugh."

She cut my list in half. She said not to worry about it. She said "Colleen, the kids in your class are not only learning and working hard, but they're HAPPY. They're so excited about working."

And this is true. And this is Montessori. And this is what I've been doing since I was 25 years old, philosophically, teaching preschool. So yeah, I know this. I also knew that I didn't want to teach anymore. I also applied for a job on the periphery that was NOT in a classroom. Instead I got an offer in the classroom, a better salary offer than any private school I'd ever worked in, Elementary Montessori training, and an opportunity it seemed would have been foolish to pass up. Now I feel like a fool for taking it all on.

My grandmother died three weeks ago, today. I spent the last 8 days of her life with her. My adrenaline on full blast, giving me everything I needed to wake up 5 times a night to care for her while sleeping on a lumpy couch, staying present every moment. She finally passed away, there was a wake, there was a funeral, there was the drive home, and BLAM back full on into my life like nothing ever happened.

I spent this past Saturday in bed. Almost all day. I haven't been sleeping (apparently still not sleeping, as it's 1am at the moment) and was sick; in my head, in my stomach. I spent the day in bed sleeping and weeping. Why can't I just stop for awhile. Why can't I just pause and go look for those pieces that have split from me. Why can't I just feel like I'm whole and not constantly stretching myself so thin that I leave little pieces of myself behind everywhere I go, on the floor, where those pieces of myself get stepped on and kicked aside.

Friday at work there was all the 3rd grade petty angst of girls "she said this about my mom... she's not my friend because of this... wah wah whine whine blaaaaah..." I held up my hand. "Write it. I don't want to hear about it; get your writing journals and write it."

So they did. Then the girls lined up and showed me what they'd written.

"I don't like M. anymore because she said my mother is a b____ and is going to h - e - l - l." Etc like this. "and she isn't my friend because I blah blah blah and she blah blah blah...."

I took a pencil and wrote back.

"Sometimes people who don't feel good about themselves try to make other people feel bad so they might feel a little better. It doesn't work. Try not to let anyone get to you. You are amazing. You are special. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. If someone makes you feel bad about yourself, know that they must not feel good about themselves, and walk away."

I must have wrote little messages like this for four different girls Friday.

Maybe it does make a difference. Maybe I do make a difference.

So what?

Do I live in service of others, or do I live in service of myself? Do I stay in a job that drains the shit out of me where little pieces of me are left in random places being kicked around, or do I gather myself back together, get some kind of work without a fat paycheck but that allows me room to breathe, to write, to exercise?

I already know the answer, of course. And I wish I didn't feel so guilty about it.

mehlo mehlo

The children have decided I'm not ms. lowe anymore - I'm MEHLO!! MEHLO!!! which, on second thought, rings kind of cool ... "mellow - mellow -" I can live with that.

so tired I can't believe I'm bothering with this blog tonight. three nights of no sleep - so much anxiety - so ready to move on from this job - yet so attached to my kids it's not as easy as quitting any other job that exists...

and this morning went so well.. so much work.. so much study.. so much enthusiasm... I. my superstar has recently figured out dynamic addition - carrying - and was doing it in the millions with up to fifteen numbers. wow. I was calling him the human calculator. and tons of language work --- maps --- G. can name about 25 states learned only out of repetition - I never actually sat down and taught her, she taught herself. Yeah montessori.

but then a. was choking sweet a.. stormed off in that anger haze and sat in the stairwell. I called the office for a counselor to come up - obviously it was a serious infraction - but nobody ever came. why do I even bother calling?

then M. was pulling on her earrings so hard that both ears started to bleed. Later she found a piece of glass on the playground, put it in her pocket, then was carving the palm of her hand with it when we were back in the classroom.

I can't do this. I learned the term "secondary trauma" tonight... those bearing witness, I suppose, to the primary trauma? Anyway it hit me, or validated perhaps, how much of this kind of trauma I absorb by proximity.

I asked myself tonight if my heart is not big enough or too big.
It's a tough call.
"What's going to happen to these kids?" my stepmother asked me tonight.

I don't know. I don't know, and I can't save them.

met a couple girlfriends at a greek place tonight for dinner. had my lesson plan book out and told myself I must remember to put it back in my bag after tucking it aside.
turns out I left it there. in a restaurant nearly an hour from my house.
OOPS.
this won't fare well for the meeting I have tomorrow, or for my follow up meeting with the principal.
perhaps a subliminal act.
I want to care ... I do...
but I"m also trying hard... to only care about myself...
hows that for a not so selfish twist. I miss me. I want her back. all of her.

late friday entry

Got home friday and shortly after went out with my husband for sushi and a cocktail or two. Wasn't in the right frame to write when I got home and have been avoiding the update all weekend as the weekend is peaceful. I don't want to think about what is not.

Though Friday I somehow managed to wow my principal. She came an hour late - so I'd already given the major lessons I wanted to give, children were busy, and I was giving some help and individual lessons when she came in. Ms. N had taken M. to the nurse - he wasn't feeling good - so I was alone when she showed up to observe, an ominous presence, ee gads the principal is here to check me out.

Fuck it. I didn't care. This is it, this is how we roll. And the kids rose up - nothing to do with me - they rose up and man they were just working. And M. my girl M. who can be the biggest pain in my ass hid all the singular/plural work from the other girls so they couldn't do it - "Msslowwwwe M.'s hiding all the work we want"
I go over to M., squat down and look at her face, "How many of those envelopes can you do at once?" I ask her quietly. "one" she says. "So how about we let the girls use the other ones"

She takes them off her lap and gives them to me.

Then she does something else obnoxious, I don't remember, and I pick up her table and move it closer to where I am "in case she needs any help." and she goes right back to working, no problem.

A. was totally proud of his dynamic addition of complex numbers - 6 of my kids think its the most fun they've ever had - "I"m a math geek!" they yell out to each other, loving numbers.

What did I do? Nothing. This is them. At least on this morning in those moments that I was observed.

Now she's telling other teachers how "masterful" I am and that they should all observe in my room.

"WHAT?" I say, when I hear this from my colleague. "Are you KIDDING me?"

Sure. There is some magic in the classroom, there is concentration and focus, there are learning children and there is calm.

But at what cost? I am still asking myself. At the cost of my health? my stress levels? my dread on sunday nights having to go back the next day? my ability to conceive? my complete and utter lack of time to do anything for me? to write?

Something about being with gramma and that stark awareness that life is short and time is precious. Do we go on doing something just because we might be good at it even if it sucks the life right out of you? Do you suck up and hail the mighty paycheck and then go home and have sleepless nights over kids who have rocks in their heads and it's your responsibility to fix it?

There have been so many drive by shootings in the neighborhood of my school lately.
It's just another factor to think about. To think really hard about.