First week of teaching

Well, I survived my first official week of teaching. I say survived but I had a mini breakdown last night.

I don't know if that's related to being back at school, being triggered by a memory or merely because I was due to start my period. Incidentally, I have started my period...

In truth, I think it was a combo of all three.

I always keep things locked up but being back at school doesn't really leave time enough for me to cry. I'm not someone who can cry openly in front of people. If that happens, it means I have been caught off-guard. Last night I felt crap and started crying. But once I started I couldn't stop. It was one of those moments where everything raced through my mind. I started to remember stupid things which don't matter but for some reason in that moment they meant the world. I don't understand how people voice their "stuff"* out loud.

In my self-diagnosis (not telling people your "stuff", it becomes inevitable for you to become your own therapist; not necessarily how therapy should work I don't think) I have realised that my inability to tell people things means that I grow impatient with people who can, which is wrong. I have become so independent in taking care of myself in specific ways that when I see other people complain of their "stuff" I am uncomfortable about it. The truth is that I am the problem.

You should be able to unleash your "stuff" with the people you love. Otherwise what are they for. I think that I am a coward for not doing this. And yet knowing that I am coward is not enough for me to even admit on this blog what "stuff" is happening at the moment.

Yesterday, I watched "Take this waltz" and one of the characters said:

"I remember when my niece, Toni, was a newborn, I'd babysit her and sometimes she'd cry, like babies do. Nine times out of ten I could solve the problem, I could figure it out, but...sometimes when I'm walking along the street and a shaft of sunlight falls in a certain way across the pavement and I just want to cry. And a second later, it's over. And I decide, because I'm an adult, to not succumb to the momentary melancholy and I had that sometimes with Toni. She just had a moment like that. A moment of not knowing how, or why, and she just let herself go into it. And there was nothing anyone could do to make it any better -- it was just her, and the fact of being alive, colliding."

I feel the same way. I will be on the train or I'll be walking and I'll see something in the window and I will feel like I just need to cry. Today I was walking somewhere and a few leaves feel from the tree I had just walked under. Isn't that just so utterly and intrinsically poetic. There is something so beautiful about trees shedding their leaves. And they float so gently to the ground. Maybe that's just me being soppy. Or maybe it's the shedding. Maybe that's what I envy the most. (self-diagnosing again?)

Until next time,

T

x



*"stuff" being a reference to everything that plagues our mind/heart

Laptop thoughts..

It is 11:43 PM. I am sitting on bed, typing on my laptop in darkness. A bright white light beams from the power button on my printer at the other end of the room. Shadows of my open door sit at the top of the stairs, leading down into the rest of the house where almost everyone else is sleeping. I received an important email today. This evening. Life-changing, in a way. I'm pretty sure that in the months to come I shall want to remember this moment. Or perhaps I won't. That's the problem with time. It is always leaving. I won't know until the time comes. 

When I first saw the email, part of me was relieved. It was something I was sort of waiting for, in the back of my mind. I wasn't panicking about it but it was something that I imagine I would panic about later down the line. The second emotion was definitely fear. I attended a lecture this week on adolescence. One of the things which stood out to me was when the speaker mentioned that teenagers and young adults can be fearful of failure, which we'd sort of expect, but they can also be fearful of success. The speaker also mentioned that adolescence is a period that is lengthening-- some people don't move on from adolescence until their mid-twenties. That leaves me in the space of adolescence. It's weird because the lecture was pitched at new teachers understanding their pupils and their experiences of being adolescents. For me, though, I realised that I am still very much making that transition. Getting that email made me feel fear because it was a great sign of great things to come. But that's a terrifying concept, especially for someone who doesn't feel at all prepared for it emotionally or psychologically. I feel like I am the adolescent the speaker was talking about. Fearful of success and in the middle of making a transition from one stage of life to another. 

Why is it that when we are young we want to grow up and when we grow up we want to be young? Why can we never be in the moment? I don't know how to be an adult. I don't know how to feel about being one and I don't know how to move into that space? What does an adult sound like? What does an adult do? What will I lose?

What hurts the most is that I am happy about the email, but I am too focused on failing. I don't know how to stop myself from feeling like I am going to fail. I don't know how to accept the happiness and embrace it. I am worried that I will be lulling myself into a false sense of security. Perhaps I am preparing myself for failure. Perhaps experiencing is believing and I'm still in the stage of disbelief. 

I mentioned in a previous post that being a PGCE students requires cheerleading on one's behalf. 

Here goes:

I can do it.

I can do it.

I've already done it.

I will do it again.

I can do it.

And if I can't, it's okay. 

The centre will hold.