I've been super busy lately, and so I haven't had time to come up with a new post at all. As such, I've decided to share a little something I wrote this past summer. I took a class, for my master's degree, call the Northeast Writing Institute (NeWI). Basically, for one whole week, I got to work on my own writing. I chose a piece, and worked on it tirelessly, getting feedback from classmates and instructors (one of whom was my favorite teacher in high school). I got pretty frustrated over the course of that week, but it paid off hugely. In the end, I was left with an essay of which I'm proud. It says a lot, I think, about me as a person and as a teacher. So, here is the first part of said essay (the rest shall follow shortly) ....
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Endings aren’t always happily ever after. They’re not always sad, either. They’re change. When something ends, we adjust. We move on. We modify our lives to fill in the hole that’s left behind with something different or new or better.
The spring, a time of renewal and beginnings for most, is a time of endings for teachers. We close our classrooms, pack away the supplies, and reflect on the year we have just finished. In late August, we start all over again ready to present fresh, improved lessons and ideas to our shiny, new students. We don’t know what will succeed, what will fail, or what will leave us feeling completely lost. We take chances, and amidst all of the tumult and uncertainty, one thing remains constant. Hope.
Every year, the end of school is especially hard for me. Many people don’t understand that. Some teachers count the days to school’s end along with their students, and people who are not educators often joke that we teach just for the vacations. At the end of the year, though, I have to say goodbye to the students I’ve grown to love, and to the communities built with them, and it’s hard.
When I pulled away from the Old Town High School parking lot, having just finished my third year teaching English, as usual, I was in tears. I could feel everything changing, and although I expected it, I was somehow surprised at how helpless it made me feel. I sat in my car, glad it knew where to go, not wanting the year to be over. So many wonderful things came out of the year, and I was afraid this closing would end them completely.
My dear friend, and our literacy intern, would no longer be at Old Town High School three days a week. Our verbal banter, and the feeling of comfort his presence brings, would be gone. The sense of support and the reminder of the summer institute where we met would be gone as well. I would no longer be able to walk into the literacy office and see him there, or joke with him, or trade teaching ideas with him. My biggest fear, though, was the fear that I would lose the potential that this relationship offered.
The writing center I had worked so hard to open was now closed for the summer. The supplies were all tucked away, the bulletin board cleared of any notices. None of the fabulous student-tutors were sitting behind tables ready to help. This place of activity and enthusiasm was now dull and vacant.
None of the students to whom I had grown so attached would be mine anymore. They would move on in September to new teachers and new classes filled with new and different students. I could no longer call them “my kids,” and despite, or perhaps because of that reality gnawing at my insides, I was forced to move forward.
Perhaps my biggest anxiety as I drove away from my second year at Old Town High School was the loss of connection with new and wonderful colleagues, and friends. Would I see them enough to maintain these new, developing friendships? Would next year be the same? Would we have things to talk about now that our classes, classrooms, and students were changing? Would they all even be back in September? These questions circled my thoughts, and leaked out of my eyes. They were all I could think of that night, and into the next day.
When I left school, crying, I felt frustrated with myself. I knew intellectually that most of my fears were completely unfounded; that they may be emotionally legitimate, but that in all actuality many of them would never transpire. Emotionally, though, I was terrified that these fears would be realized, and it made my stomach turn in on itself. I felt helpless and alone and desperate to feel secure again. I felt lost, and like a child. I needed, and I wanted, someone to comfort me.
The truth, though, is that I’m a 26-year-old woman. I don’t have a Mom at home to hug me and brush the hair from my eyes. I don’t have a Dad there to take me by the hand and lead me through the hurt as unscathed as possible. I have me, and in these moments I needed to be enough. There was no one to understand what I was feeling because it was personal, specific to me and who I am; it was a hurt all my own, and one that I needed to work through myself. This reality made my drive home even more tough, more lonely, and more disorienting.
I slept with these fears, wanting them to dissipate, knowing they would be right there with the alarm. I got ready for a day of curriculum work slowly, thinking about my fears. I dried my hair, got dressed, fed my dog, ate my breakfast, and began the drive to school all while replaying, over and over again, the sorrowful endings creating a jagged hole in my chest.
I had felt incredibly bad the night before and that morning. Songs I usually belted along with brought me to tears. Then, on a straight, flat stretch of Interstate 95, my foot on the gas pedal, and Next to Normal blaring through my car speakers, I realized something that I've never given much thought. Without thinking, I said to myself, "It’ll be better in a day or two." Those eight words actually made my eyes pop and I shook my head. Eight little words brought me hope.
In that moment, I gave myself permission to feel bad for a while, to cry even, because I knew, and I felt, that I would feel better. I thought of other times in my life when I’ve felt desperate or helpless or inconsolable. I thought of the day my mother died, of the betrayal of my best friends. I remembered all of the other goodbyes I had said, and I knew. I knew I had made it through those experiences, and that I would make it through this one too.
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