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.