Hormones and body dysmorphia is fun.
When your brain thinks it’s still in its twenties but you’re closer to forty. You looked at my hands and wondered who they belong to? Why do they seem to belong to a person who is decades older than you? You wonder if someone has replaced my skin with an alligator’s. There are days when you wonder how you’re an adult and you need an adultier adult to fix the situation, but you are the adultier adult now.
I wonder how I’m in charge of helping the three young beings grow into being adults. It feels overwhelming and exhausting and rewarding all at the same time. I wonder if I’m going to fail? How much will I give to watch them succeed? I know I will never give up, but how much of myself will I have to sacrifice for them?
I feel the same way about my students.
I know my seniors, for the most part, really don’t give a fuck.
They just want to graduate and get out of school. I grasp that mindset completely. I wanted to do the same thing at their age. But my younger students I work hand in hand with. I try to make sure, as many of them as possible, understand what we are doing and how to create different things. But it’s just so frustrating and demoralizing when some of your students either won’t do the work or lie to their parents and say that I don’t care. I can only do so much. I am only one person. But I will never brush a student aside. I am always willing to help them. I make myself available outside school hours; they have my phone number, and know that they can text me if there’s ever an issue. I just really wish sometimes I could record my classes and show the students who put no effort and how I call them out in class. When I ask them where their assignment is and show their parents the shrug or nonchalant response that I receive. You would think I was asking them to recreate End Game instead of requesting them to put just the tiniest bit of effort into their schoolwork.
I have enough shit on my plate to deal with. I’m not completely sure why I thought being a teacher could be rewarding. Thankfully, transitioning to high school there have been more positive days than bad. However, on days like this, where I already hate myself, I just wonder if it is easier to return to the newsroom. Maybe 2am wake-up calls weren’t truly that bad.
