November 6, Sunday
It's all catching up to me... the work, the plans, the teaching, the needs of the kids, the needs of the world... it all weighs down on me. When I come home, it's crash time.
I was talking to other teachers, and they report similar experiences, whether they have children at home or not. The day is very intense, and for most of them starts around 5 or 6 a.m., and doesn't end until they get home, for some that is 5:00 and for some that is 7:00. But it's not like they can rest when they get home. Most have to bring their work home to catch up or to begin plans for the following week.
One would think one could get all their work done in the day allotted. I thought I could. I thought that if I stayed at school until 6:00 p.m. I could get the bulk of it done, and even look into the next week to begin putting materials and plans together for the week following. The several times I did this, I found that I didn't have as much time to do my work as I had hoped for.
Meetings and workshops take up large chunks of after school time. Meetings needed to coordinate all the events that are being planned for the school year, and workshops to introduce or revisit a new teaching strategy or approach.
Reading and responding to important email messages from the staff and administration takes up time.
Updating progress and maintaining files takes up time. Entering data into the EC data base, which is a very slow process at school, takes up too much time. The other alternative is to take it home and do it after everyone has gone to bed.
When you stay after school, you become available for anyone who walks into your room.
A parent walks in with concerns. You are glad to see the parent because you've been trying to reach them by phone. An hour later, the phone rings, and another parent wants to talk about her concerns. When you finally return to your classroom, and the work you need to get done for the next day, it is almost 4:00.
A teacher comes to you with her questions, an observation, ideas, or with classroom needs. So, being the teacher you are, you will sit down with her and address the problem at hand and try to work out a plan. Other times, I am the one seeking advice or ideas from other teachers, and I walk into their rooms, and they are available to me.
Teachers support each other in this way, and provide suggestions, advice, and ideas for helping each other deal with the day-to-day as well as long term issues one encounters in the classroom. Teachers do not usually work in an atmosphere of isolation and selfishness. Most often, they need what the more experienced have to share, and they will share what they know works for them, whether it be a lesson plan that went well, or a behavior management strategy that enables her to maintain class order.
Then, the weekend comes, and there are church activities, fundraisers, obligations to attend to. Sometimes I am asked to participate in something I should be involved in because I am a member of the Body of Christ, and often I will say yes. Other times I say no because I have already given much time to serving the public's children, and I rationalize that if I keep going like this, I will end up the sick one. Who will take care of me then? Who is going to step in and make sure my job gets done? There will be more to do after I get back, not less. There is no catching up.
This is the tired me talking. The dark side.
Sometimes writing is poetry and beauty and wonder, and other times, writing is scraping the bugs off the windshield of the car. I read that somewhere, so it's not my original metaphor. But I do understand that one. It's the one I think about when I have to clean out the clutter in my heart, to make it empty and ready to receive love from others.
Sometimes you have to stop and clean the windshield of all the nasty, gooey, grimy stuff that clutters up the view, the things that hit you as you travel through the week, that splatter across your mind's eye, muddying up the view you need to continue safely and purposefully.
Journaling is a way to do that. It's a way to clear your view so you can see the way to go, to find the right path. With a clear vision of where you are going, you won't have to worry about crashing into boulders and trees, or running into dead ends.
I wonder how others cope with their daily demands, when the weekend doesn't provide the rest one needs. I wonder, do they shut down? Do they take the time? Do they get what their bodies and minds and hearts and souls need to help them return to work on Monday?
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It is now 5:15 pm, and the day is almost over. It is amazing what a little time spent in the presence of others on a Sunday afternoon can do for a tired body. Full of my own concerns, I seemed unable to shake the cloud of depression that engulfed me this morning, and then I went to church. I spoke with a few friends before the service began, and then I saw Lucy.
Lucy is a beautiful Zimbabwean woman who started coming to our church with her children last year, and who is struggling to make ends meet as a single parent. She is going to school to get her RN license, and there are things happening in her life that are truly stressful and almost unbearable for her to handle at this time. She is very open about what her needs are, and today, I knew she needed a friend.
I invited her to lunch today, and she spoke about her children, her hopes and dreams, and her fears for the world they are experiencing. Tears came to her eyes more than once, and I knew she truly was bearing a heavy load. Another friend, Pat, joined us for this afternoon luncheon. She listened with compassion and understanding to Lucy's story, and nodded quietly, giving calm acceptance and assurance. We didn't have answers for her, only support. We were mothers sharing our experiences, we were sisters offering encouragement and understanding.
Today we could only offer our friendship and moral support, but as time brings us together, perhaps more will come of that, and perhaps Lucy will find strength to fight the battles that wear her down.
In spending time with Lucy, I felt that I had received some support for myself. She was grateful for the two hours we spent talking, and I wondered how long had it been since she has had a friend to talk to? For how long do any of us have a friend to talk to? Listening to her lovely accent as she voiced her concerns, and offering our friendship made for a pleasant, if not happy, two hours.
Sometimes what we need to talk about is too sensitive, or undesired, or only causes unsettling arguments. Family issues, financial issues, marital issues, health-related issues, political and religious issues... Somehow you just know when it is appropriate to talk about something to another... somehow, you know when the timing is wrong, and so you wait for the right time. And sometimes, the right time just never seems to show up, and you put it off, and don't talk about the thing that you need to talk about, you put it away somewhere for a later, more opportune moment. Which never comes. You forget about it. For awhile, other things in the course of living one's life take your mind off of it.
There are not answers for everything that disturbs and troubles us. There are not cures for all the diseases that can ravage and steal the lives of young people. There will not always be happy days in the lives of those who are committed to doing Christ's work, and there are not enough hours in the day to get all one's work done. It is never done. At school, at home, at church... it is never done.
Maybe, if I could just accept that, I wouldn't have to deal with the feeling of being submerged by my work, trapped as in a vehicle that has strayed from the road, plunging into depths of dark, cold, river water.
Several years ago, my college professor, Dr. Judith Howard, used a word on me that shed light on that feeling. I had gone to her as a student teacher and expressed the feeling of "drowning," the sensation of being overwhelmed by the new learning, the papers to write, the professional journals to respond to, the research, the shedule demands, and teaching experiences taking place in my life at that time.
She smiled and said, "Bea, you aren't drowning! You are immersed in your work! And that is a good thing."
I don't know why, but that encouraged me. She understood what I was going through, and that word just captured it at the time. Immersed.
In the former image, one is totally underwater, strugglingfor air, fighting to reach the surface for a breath. In the latter, one is absorbed in one's work.
The work doesn't drown me. It absorbs me.
I become the work.
Semantics? Maybe, but the image does help me get through the deeper, darker, faster moving currents of life.
