May is doing a beautiful job of keeping us all unsettled and exhausted, to say the least.
It's been a chaotic week, and as I posted on Facebook the other night, I am stressed in every single direction. But a phone call from a dear friend helped reset my perspective a bit; I am stressed in a life I love, and I am stressed in work I am privileged to do. All is right with the things that matter.
But I'm struggling a bit right now, because like so many other teachers, I'm tired. I'm trying so hard not to let relentless negativity affect the way I approach the last few weeks of the year, but it is hard sometimes. Let me tell you, though, if you're the kind of person who turns every single conversation into a "vent," I am going to work very hard to avoid you. I cannot be angry all the time, especially about things that don't really matter in the long run. Or about things that, frankly, are a matter of attitude more than anything else. That sucks the energy right out of me, and I don't have any to spare. Or I need to save it for things that do matter--and turn my anger into something positive.
I had a great discussion with some of my kids today. They are also unsettled, for lots of reasons. The end of the school year is crazy, and sometimes crazy hard. It's hard for some of my kids in a way it's not hard for me, and I need to listen to them.
We're all upset by the recent shootings in our city, and I'm upset by some of the responses to it. Look: we should absolutely be asking what's happening, and we should absolutely be passionate about making our city a safer place to live. An innocent man was gunned down while he was out jogging the other night, and I made my husband promise that he's not going to be out running after dark for awhile. I expected him to fight me on this, but he didn't; he saw how upset I was. (Also, it's summer, and there is no reason he needs to run when it's dark.) If we are going to continue to build our city, we also need to increase the services and support that growth requires. Yes, I'm upset. Yes, I'm unsettled. Yes, I'm afraid sometimes, but I've learned to always be a little afraid. When I was nine, a girl who lived near me was kidnapped, her skull found in the mountains a year later. When I was in fourth grade, one of my classmates was nearly abducted on her way to school; she managed to run away, but whenever anyone asked her about it, her face froze and she turned away. Four years ago, a woman in my home state was murdered while she was out for a jog on a country road. And I grew up in a place where everyone looked like me, in a place where mothers felt free to turn their children loose in the neighborhoods to roam with their friends for the entire summer.
Yes, I'm afraid sometimes. No, I'm not leaving.
It is not as simple as blaming a certain thing, or a certain group of people. If I never read the word "ghetto" or "trash" again in connection with people who rent apartments, I'll be thrilled. If I never have to hear the words, "SOME of them...MOST of them..." I'll be thrilled. And who are "they"? Who are our neighbors, exactly? Do you know what's heartbreaking? To hear a student talk about what it feels like to read these comments on social media when they live in one of these apartment complexes, to hear them feel like they need to defend their existence: "My mom works two jobs, and we don't have a lot of money, but that doesn't mean we sell drugs, it doesn't mean we're ghetto, we're not killin' people." But they hear that they don't belong here, because the city looks nothing like it did twenty years ago. ("SOME are good people...")
If you are one of those people posting these things: be aware. When you call someone trash because they're one of "those people" who rents one of those apartments in your city, you diminish someone's humanity. When you tell people they should get out while they can, you're speaking from a place of fear, and that can turn into something far uglier.
And I'm not leaving, because this is my home. I will not listen to "Get out while you can." Because I love this life I have right here. I will continue to tell anyone who listens that my children are gaining more than they are losing by attending our neighborhood school. I will continue to be fiercely loyal to their teachers, who are just fucking incredible and you will not convince me that my kids will have better ones in a prettier school. I will continue to be frustrated by my own students, and I will continue to feel that I am not enough for them, and I will continue to try to be better for them, because they deserve the best I can give. These kids, right here, the ones who frustrate and enrage and worry me, the ones who make me angry with their apathy, the ones I don't know how to help, the ones who take my preconceptions and my own prejudices and shatter them and allow me to love them. I will continue to belong to the church community right here that challenges me and pushes me out of my comfort zone, because it asks this of me: that I serve my neighbor. And who is my neighbor?
My students and I talked about social protest and social justice and perception today. What makes us angry? The perception of teenagers. The perception of people who look a certain way, who live in a certain place. The perception of homelessness. The perception of poor people who don't spend their money on the "right" things. We talked about a lot of things, and I saw their eyes flash with passion and anger but we didn't stop with anger because anger alone is poison, anger alone becomes bitterness, and bitterness leads to posting shit on social media or bitching about everything all the time instead of contributing something real to real people.
I just wish I knew how to do better. I just wish I wasn't so tired and sad right now, tonight. But I think it's also okay to sit in the sadness for awhile, as long as I don't stay there, as long as I can breathe deeply and talk to people I love who lift me up, who stand with me, who know that this is hard work that we are doing but dammit, the fact that it is hard does not give us permission to stop. Know this, lest you think I am better than I actually am: Sometimes I want to stop. I do. Sometimes I want something safer, something easier. Sometimes I want the luxury of complacency. Sometimes this does feel too hard. Sometimes I become bitchy and bitter, and I am deeply sorry about the times I may have fed that in someone else. Sometimes I think about other places I could work, other jobs I could do. I think about other places we could go, and what our lives would look like.
But when I think about the people who truly inspire me, the people who make me want to be better, the people I love, the people I want to be when I grow up, they're the people in the trenches with me. I know I'm right where I need and want to be right now.
I don't believe I was put on this earth to be happy. I believe I was put on this earth to contribute something to it, and I choose to do that here, in my community, in this place where I have put down roots, where I work hard, where I love. Deeply, messily, imperfectly.
And that makes me happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment