Winelight
I think I'm almost past grieving. My grandma's death happening right when things were most overwhelming with the job was more than I could handle. I was sick, exhausted, and horribly, devastatingly sad. Christmas break should have been a respite, but I only felt more underwater when class started back and I hadn't had any time to catch up. I found out one of my best and most beloved students was being pulled out of the school by his mother, who apparently has this kind of whim to move at least once a year. No job to get to, just time to go. The weeks before Christmas had seen several awful scandals at the school -- a death threat between students, one girl's father gunned down in their front yard by a family member, a suicide attempt, a disturbing discovery of explicit sexual fantasies of teachers accompanied by graphic porn on a student's tumblr page. Three out of the four were my students.
But something changed. I found the wall, the limit. About a week after class was back in session, I hit rock bottom. In complete despair trying to write midterms and assemble final grades, barely sleeping, with crippling back pain, I realized I was willing to walk away. That it was so bad that my own health and recovery was now more important to me than killing myself for my 145 students. I decided that if my health didn't improve, I would leave. That if they didn't give me fewer classes next year, I would leave. That it wasn't worth it to be this miserable to do something I love. And that was the point I apparently had to get to. I turned in grades, I saw a chiropractor, I went and got a massage. A friend invited me with her to Bok Tower in the pit of my despair, and I went and stood in the Spanish moss and watched the birds and walked through the vegetable garden and alongside the gorgeous wine-light magnolias.
It was the end of January and there was a Santa convention. 64 degrees. Men in red overalls, red shirts & jeans, dark-framed glasses and long white beards carrying red phones, walking beneath the towering trees in the shadow of the tower. I looked out over the orange groves and ate strawberries my friend had gotten from the farmer's market, fresh scones. We talked about writing and teaching and why we might not come back. Knowing that there was this beauty so close to me, so close to all the terrible things that happen to these students helped me break through. Chris Guillebeau wrote the other day that "No one can hold power over you as long as you’re willing to walk away." And I realized that I had turned a corner. That I had gone over the brink, and just that knowledge was enough to lift my burden.
Now I'm doing things for myself again, for joy. I've started submitting to journals, reading for enjoyment, planning beyond tomorrow. I decided I wanted to put together a website for my students to showcase their photos, something they could share with family and friends, something to be proud of. And I worked on almost nothing else for days, and then turned it over to them last week. They are so excited. And most importantly, I am excited. I have found a way to love what I'm doing, to buoy myself up in impossible circumstances. I have accepted that I will not be able to achieve all that I want here, and that has allowed me, finally, to thrive. Now I can enjoy the moments a student texts me to say "Miss Abel, I took awesome pictures this weekend!" or when a sophomore boy gets excited when he realizes how Gwendolyn Brooks is using diction to juxtapose the remote dream with the all-too-present reality of the kitchenette.
It only took 6 months.
It was the end of January and there was a Santa convention. 64 degrees. Men in red overalls, red shirts & jeans, dark-framed glasses and long white beards carrying red phones, walking beneath the towering trees in the shadow of the tower. I looked out over the orange groves and ate strawberries my friend had gotten from the farmer's market, fresh scones. We talked about writing and teaching and why we might not come back. Knowing that there was this beauty so close to me, so close to all the terrible things that happen to these students helped me break through. Chris Guillebeau wrote the other day that "No one can hold power over you as long as you’re willing to walk away." And I realized that I had turned a corner. That I had gone over the brink, and just that knowledge was enough to lift my burden.
It only took 6 months.