Month: April 2019

This damned job rips your heart out sometimes.  

I have friends who are not in education.  Those friends will often complain that something is missing in their work.  Some feel that their talent is being wasted. Some feel like glorified salespeople. Some feel undervalued, or derive little personal satisfaction from the end goal of making money.  When I’m in those conversations, I am reminded of why I chose education.  I don’t suffer from that particular affliction.  I find a deep purpose in my job.  It’s not overstating to call education a calling.  Those of us who do it, do so in spite of the many drawbacks… we do it because we feel deeply called to teach.  

We all know that teachers don’t enter the field because of the financial allure of a big paycheck. We don’t have a lot of hope for advancement.  We do count on decent benefits to provide a counter to the constant financial and emotional drain of this particular career.  

And we start out with an idealistic sense of our own power for good.  We start with boundless energy and enthusiasm and optimism.  We start with a deep love for humanity; for children in particular.  We want to be a part of something bigger.  We want to change lives and show love and impart knowledge along with confidence and character and a love of learning.  

And then. 

We learn some hard lessons. We learn that our best efforts will often be rewarded with a lack of support or even outright opposition.  We learn that those parents we thought were on our side may actually view us as an enemy force, conspiring to corrupt and demean their children.  We get slammed by grief, as if for our own children, as we watch our students experience trauma or violence or heartbreak.  We load our desks with snacks and spare toiletries for those who are homeless or struggling or simply without supervision as parents struggle to make ends meet.  We run clubs and after school events on our own time and our own dime, so that our students have a safe place to spend a few extra hours after school.  We pool our resources to ensure no student will be without a gift for the holidays.  We buy coats and shoes and gloves to leave with the nurse, for the kids who come in without them.  

And when my husband and I decided to become foster parents to take in a student with nowhere to go, do you know what the intake worker on the phone said to me?  She said, “Oh, you were her teacher?  God bless teachers.  I don’t know where half these kids would be without teachers who step up.” 

Teachers do.  They step up.  And the financial sacrifice is nothing compared to the emotional sacrifice. Because you can’t do this job well without putting your heart into it.  If you’re not capable of loving other people’s kids, then teaching isn’t for you. If you’re going to make a difference, first you have to make a connection.  You have to look at the students who are hard to love; you have to really get close and you have to find their best qualities, and you have to bring out those qualities over and over and over again until the student begins to recognize that they, too, have gifts to share.  The kids that are hard to love are often the ones who need it most. And if you’re going to connect with those kids, you have to be willing to let your own heart get broken over and over again.  

And when these kids move on, you wish them luck.   You check in on them occasionally.  You clip newspaper articles and leave them in the staff room with a smiley-faced note that proudly proclaims, “Former student! ”  You run into them at the bank and the grocery store and some will come right up and hug you while others sneak by with a shy smile and the briefest eye contact. You go to high school graduation for each class that you’ve had the privilege to teach.  You cheer loudly and you congratulate them by name.  

Because that’s just what you do.  

Teachers know that.  

So how is it that I know all this, and this week still took my breath away?  This week shook me like a rag doll and then left me breathless and bleeding emotion.  

The foundation of this crappy week is sadly something pretty typical for special education teachers. I’ve been teaching for 18 years, and this is the third time that I’ve had to work with a lawyer to prepare for a hearing because parents are suing.  Of course, I can’t get in to the details of the case, but I’ll give you some background.  If a student needs an out of district placement, I believe it is my responsibility to advocate for that.   I will never lie and say that our school is meeting the needs of a child if I don’t believe that to be true.  That’s the good thing about teachers’ unions.  They protect teachers so that we have the freedom to advocate for kids instead of being puppets for the financial decision makers.  But there will always be parents who want something different for their children than the school district is willing to provide (read- finance).  And so. We have to gather all our paperwork and dot our I’s and cross our T’s and take precious time away from our students to prepare to go to court.  As a general rule, teachers are pleasers.  We’re pretty confrontation-avoidant, and because we put our whole selves into every ounce of this job, we take any criticism as a personal attack.  A hearing is pretty much the opposite of how we’d choose to spend our days. 

So this week started with preparing for court.  

And then come the state tests.  I won’t write all of my thoughts about state tests here.  A measure of progress makes sense.  Eight year olds having panic attacks and bursting into tears because the teachers who have always guided them and encouraged them aren’t allowed to support them at all?  Come on. Eight hours of testing? Unnecessary. A computer-based assessment when all the research tells us that kids’ reading comprehension deteriorates on a screen? Well, that’s just nonsense.  There’s got to be a better way.  

State testing layered over court preparations.  The week was off to a rocky start.  

And then the unthinkable happened.  Our community was rocked by tragedy.  A murder- suicide involving both parents of five children who have moved through our school system.  I couldn’t breathe for a moment when I found out who it was.  I shoved all of the emotion to the back of my mind and I proctored the test and I taught some students and I prepared for the hearing. 

And I turned into a puddle when I got home that night.  I told myself I was overreacting.  I told myself that my tears didn’t make sense.  This wasn’t my family.  I barely knew the parents.  

But the kids.  I taught the youngest.  I could see his face when I closed my eyes.  I thought of him and my heart broke into a million little pieces. I cried.  And I cry every time I think about it.  

You know that phrase about having kids?  “It’s like having your heart walking around in the world every day.”  Well, imagine that times a thousand.  Or more.  How many students have I taught over the past 18 years?  They’re all walking around out there, with a little piece of my heart.  

The next day, I spoke with one of my teaching partners.  She had the kid in class, too.  And I confessed that I was totally shaken; in a way that almost seemed inappropriate. I was more upset than should be warranted, given my peripheral relationship with the mom and dad, and the fact that the kid had been in my class several years ago.  

But her eyes widened, and she looked at me and said, “Yes.  Yes.  Me, too.” And we both held back tears for a few minutes as we reflected on our time with that kid and we shared the common thread of our helplessness and the overwhelming emotion of knowing that this kid whom we had cared for so patiently and carefully and lovingly…. this amazing young man just had his life ripped apart.  His heart was broken and ours broke right along with it. 

Because that is what we take on as teachers.  We take on all the heartache.  

Today, I just have to sit in the sadness. I have to acknowledge that this job requires more than just my time and my energy and my commitment.  It requires connections and relationships.  And what makes it good is also what makes it hurt so damned badly. That’s the risk of relationship. That’s the price of a job that makes you whole; it also has the power to take a piece of you.  

Today is the last day of my 30s.  

I wake up to the smell of dog pee on my carpet.  Again. And before I even open my eyes, I’m doing mental calculations.  How much will the vet bill be if she actually has a bladder infection?  What if it’s worse than that?  What if she has cancer?  I can’t afford to treat dog cancer.  Wait.  What am I thinking? I don’t care about the money.  This is my beloved PET!  But… how much money are we talking about here?  Maybe she’s just getting old.  Am I going to pay hundreds of dollars for the vet to tell me she’s old?  When should I replace the carpet?  How much will it cost to replace the carpet?  Is she just going to continue to pee on the new carpet? What about flooring and a throw rug? Am I mentally redecorating for a dog with cancer? 

I roll out of bed, clean up the mess, and let the dog out.  I make myself a cup of coffee and slice an apple and start my to-do list. I have about fifteen phone calls to make; the tree guy (I’ve been putting that one off for a couple of years), schedule Bea’s road test (this terrifies me, and I’ve been postponing it for weeks), the doctor’s office, the other doctor’s office, the dentist, the hospital billing department (because I swear I already paid that co-pay)… but it’s 6am, and none of those places are open yet, so I set the list aside.  I stop writing long enough to rub the sleep out of my eye, and then I realize my mistake.  

I have a sensitivity to a few fruits; apples are one of them.  I can eat certain types.  Others make my mouth itch.  But all apples need to go directly into my mouth.   God forbid the juices get near my eye.  You see where I’m going with this, right? I just rubbed my eye with a hint of apple on my finger and now my eye is itchy and swelling and red and it’s entirely because of my own stupidity.  

I leave my list to wash my hands and rinse my eye and on my way back, I get distracted by the unmade bed in my room and then I head upstairs to the linen closet because I really need to change the sheets before I make the bed.  A tangle of squished sheets and blankets tumbles out when I open the door, like a scene from a bad comedy.  I spend 30 minutes cleaning the closet.  I change the sheets and make the bed and pour a second cup of coffee.  I spread some peanut butter on a banana for my kid and he spills dry tapioca all over the kitchen floor.  I walk across the kitchen with dry tapioca pearls stuck to the bottom of my feet, and I hand him the broom.  

This is the last day of my 30s.  

For my 30^thbirthday, my husband threw a party.  He rented a room at a restaurant and his band played and he invited everyone we knew.  My kids were 2 and 4 at the time.  They danced and ran around and were generally adorable.  Eventually, my niece took them home to bed.  She babysat and I danced and drank heavily and said some terribly embarrassing things in front of my father.  I laughed with my college friends.  I reminisced with my sisters.  I introduced my old friends to my new friends, and I reveled in being the center of attention.  People came from out of town; there was an after party in a friend’s hotel room and we finally passed out in the wee hours of the morning.  It felt like I was 22 again.  I loved it.  That party was epic. 

I am almost 40.  

I’m not feeling old or depressed or any of those things that stupid movies tell women they should feel when turning 40.  I love my life.  I’m glad to be 40.  Maybe it’s cliché, but I feel like I’m coming into my own.  I’m learning and growing.  I’m becoming a better human.    

A decade ago, I was a newlywed and a new mother. I had beautiful babies and a loving husband and I was living somebody’s dream (mine?  I wasn’t sure…) But my whole life felt unfamiliar and I secretly looked forward to those rare nights when I could go out and feel childless again.  I read books and I made plans and I was totally committed to doing marriage and motherhood right.  I was scared most of the time.  

I look back on that young woman and I admire her.  I love her energy and her passion and her commitment.  I feel her confusion and her struggle and I wish I could go back and give her a hug.  

I am not that woman anymore. 

I recently picked up a book at the library.  It’s one of those funny books about motherhood and it starts pre-baby and tells the birth story and then makes a lot of jokes about sleepless nights and baby poop and all the unexpected parts of new motherhood.  I’m finding it mildly entertaining, but totally irrelevant to my life.  Because middle-motherhood is a totally different beast.  

I’m not a new mother anymore.  I’m a middle-mother.  My kids are in the middle of their childhoods.  I’m halfway done with the ‘raising them’ part (I have no illusions about ever being ‘done parenting.’)  I’m not sleep-deprived anymore.  I’m not changing diapers. I’m at the point of motherhood where a puking kid isn’t even a punchline… it’s just another moment in a series of moments. I’m at the point where none of this feels new anymore.  

Except it is.  Puberty and driving and break-ups and college.  It’s all new.  And scary.  But it’s not the kind of scary you can joke about.  It’s ‘suicidal teens’ and ‘substance abuse’ and ‘date rape’ scary. It’s real-world, big-person problems. It’s a court date with your foster daughter and a night in the hospital with your teen.  

So solace doesn’t come from a funny book anymore.  It doesn’t come from drunken, escapist, ‘pretending-I-don’t-have-kids.’ It comes from real, genuine, human connection with other mothers.  Solace comes from knowing we’re not alone.  It comes from prayers and faith and it comes from all of the mothers before us, who have walked the journey and come out on the other side.  

I’m so grateful for the women who hold me up.  I have friends, of course, who are wonderful.  But I’m particularly grateful for those women who are a generation (or more) ahead of me on this journey.  These warriors KNOW.  My mother. My mother-in-law.  My Aunt Bev.  There are a few women in the church who read this blog and hug me afterward in a way that lets me know that they remember all of this.  They know.  And they will talk me through and hold me up and remind me that I am not the first or the last.  I count on these women to help me with the mothering, but they also help me to find the truth buried in all our myths about marriage.  

I’m not a new wife anymore. I am no longer operating under the illusion that ‘our relationship is different’ or that ‘all you need is good communication.’  I realize now that a date night won’t fix everything… but it certainly helps.  I’m starting to hear ‘staying together for the kids’ as ‘not ready to give up.’  I look at the relationships around me and I realize that we’re all capable of breaking each others’ hearts.  I’m starting to understand that any relationship is a series of choices and that you can choose each other or you can choose to leave… but they both require Herculean effort and the only escape is apathy.    

I’m starting to replace, “I would NEVER…” with “You never know…” and I’m just a little bit softer. In every sense of the word.  My body is softer.  My heart is softer.  I’m a little less judgmental and a little less edgy.  I’m a lot less cool, and I’m seeing more value in simply being warm.  

This is the last day of my 30s.  

I run the errands and make the phone calls and make a plan that will pull my kids off their screens. I connect with a friend and eat an omelet and use the good conditioner when I shower.  I put on my new socks and my favorite jeans.  I load the dishwasher and I take my son to the cardiologist.  

A decade ago, I would have been terrified.  Today, I am confident.  The doctor tells me what I already feel- my kid is fine, he needs to drink more and stand up slowly and sit down when he’s feeling faint.  An awesome sonographer points out all the parts of my baby’s heart, on a screen so like the one where I first saw his little heart beat.  She patiently describes where the valves are and points out how the blood is flowing and my other son rests his head on my shoulder and we are all reassured.  I’ve got this.  As I listen to his heart beat once again, I realize I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. 

At home, I shave my legs and pluck my chin hairs and pour a glass of wine. I text my sister.  I run the vacuum.  I read a little and write a blog post. 

Tonight, I will get together with a small group of friends.  We will eat and drink too much and laugh too loudly. We’ll celebrate our friendship and appreciate each other.  I’ll hold my husband’s hand and enjoy his company and I will look at him and remember how far we’ve come.  I will hug my kids (against their will) and I will relax into all of these blessings.  

Today is the last day of my 30s.  

Tomorrow, my fourth decade begins.  And I’m ready for it.  I’m looking forward to it… even if there’s dog pee on the carpet.  

Today is the first day of April vacation.  I woke up to the crash of thunder outside my window, and lay in bed listening to sheets of rain hit the glass.  I love a good thunderstorm.  It was still dark.  I grabbed a candle and a cup of coffee and headed toward the couch near the window in my living room. My dog is scared of thunder, so she curled up next to me with her muzzle in my lap.  As I sat there, enjoying the lightning flashes, my youngest wandered down the stairs. “Did you hear that!?” he marveled, with a glint in his eyes.  He loves storms as much as I do.  

So I sat on the couch. I cuddled my kid and sipped my coffee and pet my dog and watched the rain come down in sheets and the lightning crack across the sky.  I listened to the thunder crash and I appreciated my son’s wonder.  

It was a good moment. 

Sometimes, a day will start with one of those good moments and just keep on going.  Those are the days when I feel like I’m nailing it. The days when I feel like a good parent and a good teacher and a good friend; the days when I manage to sneak in a little self-care and balance all of the roles.  

Sometimes, it’s exactly the opposite.  You know those days, right?  The days when nothing goes right and you feel like a failure across the board?  Those are the days when you wish for a do-over and you hope you haven’t lost your job or traumatized your children.  

But really, most days are just in-between.   Most days are an assortment of successes and failures; moments of beauty and moments of pain; a little bit of peace and a little bit of chaos.  Satisfaction and disappointment. Laughter and tears.

I’ve been trying to get better at something.  I’m trying to recover more quickly when things go sideways.  I’m trying to ensure that a bad moment doesn’t turn into a bad day. I’m not great at it, but I’m getting better.  

I guess I see myself as a pretty typical mom.  I yell sometimes.  And I laugh sometimes.  We play games and we also do laundry.  We get the homework done and we have dance parties in the kitchen.  I think we have a reasonable balance.  

But I was visiting with family recently.  This is my side of the family; the family we don’t see nearly often enough.  The little one forgot to take his ADHD medicine, so he was bouncing off the walls.  The older two were being ultra-sullen teenagers, and I was shooting them warning glances across the table.  I guess none of us was at our best, when I really think about it.  

In that moment, my sister decided to reprimand me for reprimanding my son.  In front of everyone, she asked, “Why are you so mean to him?”   And then the whole family jumped in on it.   I’m too angry.  I’m always yelling. My kids have jokingly called me ‘the dream crusher’ for years; it’s always felt affectionate.  On that day, it just hurt.  

I wanted to respond. I wanted to defend myself.  What about the trips to the museum?  The puzzles and the tents in the backyard and the ice cream for dinner? What about all the times I run to the store for posterboard at 8pm?  All the birthday parties and nighttime cuddles and tickle wars?   

But I didn’t want to draw attention to how much the whole thing upset me.  I didn’t want to make it worse.  I didn’t want to drag it out.  I don’t see my family that often.  I wanted to enjoy the day.  We had plans to do something fun, and I had been looking forward to it for weeks.  So I wanted to figure out how to take that crappy moment and put it behind me. 

I tried.  I’m not sure I succeeded.  We took some photos, but the teenagers continued to be sullen. The bouncy one continued to bounce. We went to an animation museum. It was a little mom-and-pop shop open by appointment only, and it was a bit of a risk because we weren’t quite sure what we were in for.  But I loved it.  The presentation was great and it was perfect for the kids and still interesting for the adults.  I was still worried that the bouncy one was going to break something, but I tried to redirect him with a smile.  The older two continued to sulk, but I tried to find out why and they both explained that they weren’t feeling well.  I shared my water bottle and tried to have a bit more compassion… and I think the day got at least a little better.  

But it’s hard.  It’s hard to feel angry or hurt or frustrated… and then just let it go.  And I guess it depends, right?  Is it a thing you CAN just let go?  Is it a thing that needs to be discussed?  Because there’s a difference between burying something and letting it go. I think, on that day, I didn’t really let it go.  I just buried it.  Because when I think back on it, it still smarts a little.    

Here’s another example.

We had to leave early for church, because three of the four of us were playing in the bell choir. I gave everyone a warning the night before.   I made sure they were awake.  I prompted them through showers and breakfast.  I gave everyone the five-minute warning.  And then I announced that it was time to go.  The oldest responded, “I’m not ready!”  When I asked how long she would need, I got attitude. She responded with the words, “I don’t know,” but her tonesaid, “What a stupid question.  How would I know?”  I asked, “Can you give me an estimate?  Should I just leave without you?”  Her response was, “Sure.”  But imagine that ‘sure’ laced with a little ‘I’m happy to miss church because I hate it and you’re being a witch.’ 

So we left without her. But there was NO WAY I was going to let her get away with skipping church.  I texted.  “Find a way to get here.  It will take you 20 minutes to walk or 10 minutes to ride your bike.”  No response.  

She got there. She didn’t walk or ride her bike, but she called a friend and got a ride and showed up in time.  I was on the other side of the sanctuary setting up the bells.  She didn’t look at me.  No eye contact.  She was angry.  I was angry.  And I had to talk myself through it.  I had to make a choice.  

I could continue to be angry.  I could sulk and ignore her, too.  Or I could move on and try not to let it ruin the day.  So I decided on the latter.  I thanked her for getting there.  She was obviously still unhappy with me, but I think she was expecting me to be angry, too.  When I wasn’t… it was like it gave us both permission to move on.  Within a few minutes, we were back to normal.  She asked to drive on the way home.  We went shopping.  We went out for ice cream.  It actually turned out to be a lovely day.  

In that case, I think I actually let it go.  I wasn’t angry anymore.  And I was never really hurt.  Once I made up my mind that it was over, it could actually be over.  

I’m still learning. Every day, I try to hold on to the beautiful moments and I’m trying to navigate the tough moments with a little more grace.  I’m trying to do a little more ‘hugging it out.’  I’m trying to do a little less burying my feelings and a little more apologizing and explaining and moving on.  I’m working on being clear and consistent about my own boundaries, and I’m trying to listen a little bit better. I’m trying not to let a crappy moment turn in to a crappy day.  Sometimes I succeed.  And sometimes I don’t.   

The storm is over. The sky is brightening a bit, and I’m on my second cup of coffee.  Storm watching has turned into screen-watching as I type and Cal plays Minecraft.  But the candle is still burning and the dog is still at my feet and I’m hopeful that today is going to be one of the good ones.  And if it’s not?  Well, that’s okay. Because an ordinary day can be beautiful, too.