[Miscellany]

I'm looking at you and I'm wondering how you slipped through the cracks.  I'm wondering how you can cope at * years old; daily, with what most people never know until they're an adult. It's a horrible realisation to know that adults can and will let you down.  Just to know this is a slap in the face.  To expect it as normal is debilitating to the human soul.  To know it as your reality is beyond words.

You deal with it daily though and don't think I don't know how you cope.  Oh, I know.  I see it every day.  I see it in the way you move in your seat.  I see it in the words you ignore - those both harsh and full of praise.  I notice the way you lash out when others wrong you; desperately trying to cling to that part of you that is still a little hopeful and protect it.  I understand the parallel universe you've created to exist alongside this real one and I also know that reality is a dicey concept right now anyway.  I know you slip in and out as you need to.  I know how protective you are of the world you've created and I know why.  I know how comforting that world is.  I know how essential it is.  I know you need it.  I think you're amazing for having concocted this space for yourself.  You've shown at * what most adults never have to do - that is to completely protect yourself from all sides; from all attacks; from everything.  It's unfair that you have to and they never do.  Most will never, ever, EVER understand because they never, ever, EVER had to deal.  Lucky them.  They'll be the people who will tell you to look on the bright side.  Nice.

You haven't learnt yet how to ask why and when you do that will be yet another hard pill to swallow because there won't be an answer that won't come pointing back at you; yet another little something to deal with.  I understand from that look you give me that you are completely resigned to this way of being.  This is your reality and mate, you are doing a magnificent job of using absolutely every resource you have to survive it.  And you are surviving but it won't help you in this reality; the reality that isn't all that dicey for everybody else.  In this reality you are barely treading water; slowly sinking into quicksand; gasping for Ventolin; sawing logs with a butter knife. I recognise this.

I think about you a lot.  I think about you when everyone else is long gone.  I think about you when I should be thinking about myself but I have no answers.  I don't want to be yet another adult who fails you; like all of us have done so far.  As I sit here for yet another night at my desk with my head in my hands, trying desperately to make a bridge between us that won't fall down, I know that I have failed you too.   I see the you, who you really are and I admire that person and can't think of a more imaginative, clever, resourceful kid and on top of all of that I completely understand.  I do.  I guess that's what makes it harder but in the end, despite all of this I'm just another adult and just another person who will fail you in the end and it's killing me.

Labels: kids, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, teaching, teaching the teacher, work

posted by M at 6:40 pm 4 comments