seeing my way through at last...

These lyrics have been going through my head:

Bend, little willow
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight

Life, as it happens
Nobody warns you
Willow, hold on tight.

Nothing's gonna shake your love
Take your love away
No one's out to break your heart
It only seems that way...
~Paul McCartney

(From a song written for a child whose parent had just been killed in an accident, if I remember correctly)

Somehow I find it comforting, particularly the part about how no one's out to break your heart, it only seems that way... but also the part about how no one warns you how hard life will be, and yet, you can bend with the harsh winds, hold on and endure and even (as it says later in the song) "grow to the heavens."

SO job. How is it going. I'm sorry I haven't updated.

Well, parts of it are a thousand times better, and I think I have my outpatient psychiatric program to thank for that. I have been keeping up with the work - lesson planning, grading, entering grades, etc. I've been entering grades every day for that day. As long as I can keep that up, it should be good.

Overall, I have a much more positive and dedicated feeling about the work. Whenever I have a moment, it's "ok, I have a moment now, what can I do to be ready for next week/tomorrow/etc?" I'm just... eager, dedicated and disciplined... finally! Finally finally finally. It's like I can finally do what I know I can do. So that's a wonderful, powerful feeling.

The classroom management is still tough though. I cried already (but at least the students didn't see). The first week I was "on it." One of the students called me a "pit bull;" I said, "I'll take that as a compliment" and he said "it is."

But somehow by week 2 I became afraid of the students again. What exactly am I afraid of. Their judgment, perhaps? That I am too mean? Yes. But mostly, I think, afraid of their power to destroy me. Again.

I'm definitely "back on the horse" (after being thrown from it twice) but too ginger, too scared, barely perched in the saddle. Scared. Scared.

That's where the "no one's out to break your heart" comes in. The students aren't out to get me. It's not personal, even if they think it is. EVEN IF THEY THINK IT IS. They are just being teenagers. They are just bouncing off whatever's there. I'm there, so they push me and bounce off me. They will forget me. I will forget them.

I will not forget how I made myself strong or weak however.

It reminds me of trying to use the exact correct set of abdominal muscles for the back-strengthening exercise I used to do. It was a question of focusing my mind on the desired muscles (that make me strong in the classroom), willing them to be the ones to respond, but from lack of use, they are weaker than other muscles (the strong habits that make me weak in the classroom)... so, more often than not, the muscles I have used the most - the wrong ones - tighten instead of the right ones. So I lower my leg and try again. This time, this time, don't go with the habit, tighten those weaker muscles, strengthen them, strengthen them.

I like this analogy. The weak muscles get stronger with time. I just have to keep doing the exercise. Every day I go in and I do the exercise. "Success and failure are your journey."

At last I start to feel like a teacher. The rest of it - the grading, the lesson planning, etc. - even when the lessons fail - I feel like a teacher, I feel like I'm doing my job, at last, however shakily, however much on newborn-deer legs, one step in front of the other... I'm no longer the deer in the headlights... for now... but I think it's a real change that will stick.

When I get too overwhelmed or scared I just remind myself... one day at a time... one day at a time. That helps a lot too.

So... thank you for caring, for wanting to know how it's going, for being my friends. I sometimes see you as a circle of faces sending me such love and goodwill. I am so lucky! So so lucky.

There's one more thing... lately I have worried that I have become too cold... I watch the other teachers' interactions with students... so warm and loving... touching a cheek, inspiring a room full of teenagers who sit spellbound listening to a loving and powerful voice. I think I am angry at the students - all students. It makes me too cold. I have trouble remembering their names. I look at them without affection. What happened to the loving person I used to be?

But I decided, keep going. Keep going. And now writing this out I say to myself: that warm loving person is still inside me. It's eclipsed right now because of all the shame and anger around my past failures at work. But if I can start to get things right, if it can start to feel less like a constant losing battle, those negative feelings can start to fall away and I can come back to myself... the jewel is still under there, even under the pile of shit, and is never harmed or damaged no matter how much is piled upon it.

I feel much better having written that out. I was crying yesterday with thoughts of how cold I'd become... I should write in my journal more...

Huh. That's in the lyric above, too. "Nothing's gonna shake your love, Take your love away." :)

七転八起　Fall seven times, get up eight.