A student again.

I've been dreading summer vacation. And, yes, I know how that sounds. What kind of teacher dreads summer vacation?? Me. And here's why.

I dread not have a schedule. I definitely don't want to have to deal with students everyday, because I get sick of them. However, I function much better with some kind of schedule to keep. If i have somewhere to be, for even just a few hours, I'm happy. It's that simple. When I'm left to my own devices, I feel a little lost. There are too many things for me to do, and I get overwhelmed. I'm working on fixing that. I need to learn to just relax.

Anyway, I'm back to school in a few weeks. As in college school. I'll be spending the week of July 12 with the North East Writing Institute. I'm sure I'll be exhausted by the time those 5 days are over, so I should rest up now. Two weeks after that ends (Aug 2) I'll be in my second week-long class: Fiction Writing Seminar. When that's over, I have like 2 weeks and school starts again. When I think of it like that, there's not much summer. But, on a day-to-day it's a lot of free time that I'm somehow filling quickly.

In September I start an actual, semester-long class at UMO. I'll be taking young adult lit, and I have my work cut out for me. I emailed the professor for a book list so that I can get ahead, but she doesn't have it done yet. However, I have to read 8-10 self-select YAL books, so I've begun that. I read them anyway, so it's definitely not a chore. But, I do have to complete responses for each book I read. I get to chose whatever genre I want for the responses, so I'm going to try out projects I assign in class. I did my first today on A Wrinkle in Time. I just finished (2 hours after I started), and I'm pretty happy. I like that I'm doing things my students do. It reminds me, and shows me, how difficult some of my tasks are. It also reminds and shows me that sometimes, my tasks aren't hard enough, or they are just right and the kids blow them off. It's neat to be a student again. Here's the brochure I designed. What grade do you think it deserves?

Hope drove me to school

It's been almost a whole month since I posted anything, and it doesn't feel like it could possibly have been that long. Things get so hectic at the end of the school year, that a month goes by and it feels like a few days. There are so many things to do and think about that time goes by without my noticing. But, yesterday, when school ended, I noticed. Oh boy, did I notice.

If you read the last post I wrote, you'll see how reflexive and reflective I get in the spring. Yesterday was absolutely no exception to that rule. As per usual, I found myself crying when I pulled away from OTHS. I couldn't really pinpoint what made me emotional about school ending, and I'm still working on being able to verbalize that, but I think it comes down to this:

I have a hard time saying goodbye and an even harder time letting go and moving on.

I put all of myself into everything I do. I don't know how to do things half way (which I've discussed, at length, in other posts). Since I invest so much in people and situations, I often find myself feeling like things are anti-climactic (another word - though one I'm less fond of - is dissatisfied). I look at what I've invested, and what I get in return, and sometimes I kick myself in the butt. Why do I put so much into things that don't repay me? And then I remember, that's just who I am. I don't walk around doing things because of what I'll get from them in return; I do things because in the moment it feels good. Having a student throw her arms around me and squeeze might not be equal compensation for 180 days of my time, but it sure as hell reminds me why I put those days in.

When I left school yesterday - yep, crying (I'm sorry, Coty, I was), I felt frustrated with myself. I wanted to be able to verbalize and rationalize exactly why I felt so sad. I couldn't. That feeling lingered this morning as I drove back to OTHS to work on curriculum with Megan. The difference this morning was an epiphany I had in the car ...

I'm going to be OK. It will get better.

With 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 to. I felt pretty bad last night and this morning. Songs, BROADWAY songs, were bringing me to tears. And all of a sudden, without thinking about it, I said to myself, "It will be better in a day or two." Those 9 words made me actually pop my eyes open and shake my head. Oh. My. God. Hope.

The last thing to come out of Pandora's box popped into my head and I didn't even have to try. All of a sudden I gave myself permission to feel bad for a while because I would get over it. I've gotten over a lot of really terrible things in my life. This hurt, though unnamed, will play its course and leave just like all of the ones before have.

Was I magically cured of the feelings? Absolutely not, but what I figured out is that that's OK. In a day or two, or more maybe, it will get better.

I'm not going to pretend that I'll never feel hopeless again, because I'm sure I will. There are certain types of pain that take away the epiphany I had this morning because you can't quantify them. However, that old cliche, "this, too, shall pass" became absolutely clear to me in the car this morning.

It brought me hope.