My dad was in the Pentagon yesterday. I can't even begin to describe the drive to my mom's house after getting Meg's call that the Pentagon had been attacked. Her call was the first news of it to hit our school... no one knew. I work in a school where I guarantee you every single teacher and every single student has -some- connection to the Pentagon. Husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter. Or a friend or neighbor with that connection.
Even harder to describe is the feeling when I saw my dad's car come around the corner. We were all fairly calm up until that point. I saw the car first, screamed and broke for the door. We were all crying when he got out of the car, dad included. I think at that point, he didn't fully realize just how lucky he was...
Schools are closed today, probably more for logistical reasons than anything else. All the rescue equipment for the DC-Metro area is at the Pentagon. God forbid there be a fire at a school and no one there to respond.
I think I might've over-extended myself. I was trying to get my calendar together last night, and that's when it really hit me. This is how I will be spending my time...
* Full-time job. This includes being in the classroom with the kids for the whole day. I have an hour at the end of each day which will be spent in team meetings, staff meetings, resource meetings, planning committees, grade-level committees... Well, you get the idea.
* Full-time job, part two. I am responsible for modified lesson planning for 40+ kids. We've gone inclusion, so I'm putting curriculum together for the Ks, 1s AND 2s. And guess what? I don't have time after school to do it. It'll have to be done in the evenings and on weekends.
* Great Beginnings New Teacher Program. Mondays, from this month until JUNE. We've had a heads-up... there -will- be projects and homework.
* Procedures for Administering the Developmental Reading Assessment. Wednesdays through November. Gotta take this class, since I'm going to be giving the test to my first and second graders. Like soon.
* Two graduate level classes at UVA. Friday night and all day Saturday one week, all day Saturday the next week. Until Christmas.
* Two classes I really, really need... Teaching Reading and Writing in Kindergarten and Using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of cognitive Ability. But I think I might have to pass on these. Although... *wincing* I think I'm required to take the Woodcock-Johnson class, and I've been signed up automatically through the lead LD resource teacher. That's Mondays and Thursdays through Christmas.
Chances are good that I'm going to be a raving bitch to live with for the next four months. Needless to say, I ain't gonna have a lot of sympathy for anyone who complains to me about being too busy, too tired, etc, etc!
Heh, good thing I love my job as much as I do. None of this would be worth it otherwise.
First things first...
Happy (belated) birthday Betel!
Happy birthday Shan!
And second things, well, err, second. Not to lessen their importance any.
I love my job. It still feels so weird to say that. I -never- imagined myself being in a situation where it would be true. This is just SO damn cool. I love being a teacher. I love the other teachers I'm working with... you wouldn't believe how friendly and helpful and generous they've been. I love my room. I get there really early in the mornings and just stare, thinking in a rather awestruck manner "This is mine!" But most of all, I love my kids. They range from 5 to 7, and they're just incredible. Cute, funny, sharp... they all touch me in a different but equally joyous way.
And this concludes tonight's broadcast.
Okay. Wow seems to be about all I can manage at the moment.
To think I was excited about a desk and a mailbox. I've got a ROOM now. A room, and my own class in it.
In less than 24 hours, I've gone from IA to teacher. Apparently I aced the Gallop Interview, since the calls started rolling in within ONE business hour of completing it. A different school, which is breaking my heart, but this is just such an incredible opportunity. I'm going to be the Kindergarten through 2nd grade LD Resource Teacher. Pretty safe to say I'm terrified. And ecstatic. And stunned. And proud. And did I mention terrified?
This is it. No more pre-game. No more practices. No more warm-ups. I'm going into the big time.
Wish me luck.
But best of all? I'm working with someone who seems not only agreeable, but enthusiastic, about playing mentor. This is a Very Good Thing.
Is fair giving every person the same amount? Or is fair giving each person what he or she needs?
This is one of the points they keep hammering home in all my classes. So that when you get accosted in the grocery store with "How can you work in special education? It's not fair that so much money gets spent on Those Kids!" you have an answer.
Amazing, the conversations you can have over endless cups of coffee and cans of Coke while one person's husband and the other's five year old son play Killer Ping Pong ™. About being able to even distinguish between life and death. And then choosing one. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Pretty basic stuff. Except for those of us that have been there. And know that choosing to live can be even harder than dying.
My grandmother knew who I was this morning. She didn't yesterday, and she was crying, and when I could understand her, she kept saying that she had to say good-bye. Scared the shit out of me. Because she has to make that choice now. All the medical science in the world can only take you so far, and she has to decide if she can live on these terms.
I waited with my grandfather while they ran more tests, and he told me about the day my father was born. How he'd never seen my grandmother look more beautiful then when she held my dad up and said "Look, Jack! He's perfect!" How my grandfather went to the bar across the street from the hospital and bought drinks for everyone in it. That he didn't even have 15 cents for the streetcar home afterwards. How my grandfather's best friend brought the first baby gifts… a tiny pair of boxing gloves, a baseball bat. And a racing form! We were both laughing and crying by the time he'd finished.
Life, death and choices.
And I'm holding to this choice: "If you're gonna have a life, you might as well have a good one," courtesy of The Getaway People.
My gram is in the hospital again, and things are pretty bad this time, worse than when she had her stroke. She hasn't really been conscious since Saturday morning. I can say intellectually "my grandmother might die." But I'm not internalizing any of this. My brain refuses to accept that idea.
Spent a good part of the weekend with a friend I've known for over 30 (yes, THIRTY!) years. Can't begin to describe how wonderful it was to see her. This is someone I've known since third grade, and who I weathered adolescence with, despite the fact that every single boy she came in contact with after her twelfth birthday fell instantly in love with her. But she was never one of those snotty bitches who collect men like beads on a chain. She was honestly bewildered by the fact that everyone one, male and female, saw her as sex-on-legs.
And honey, God's honest truth? Ain't nothing's changed. She's still stunningly beautiful. She's still witty. She's still one of the most fun people in the world to be around. Enough so that we're on the way back from the hospital, understandably subdued, and Stanley still looked at me and said "I can't believe how much I've missed Mary." It made me smile to think about, and I needed that. It sounds so clichéd to say, but it just did my heart good to see her. She's overcome incredible odds... think a three month involuntary commitment... and yet she's come out with the determination to get her shit together. And she has.
But all of this doesn't change the fact that I'm afraid to go to bed. If I go to sleep, the phone might ring. But if I stay awake… If I stay awake, I can magically prevent it.
I think we could guarantee record numbers of viewers though. We're damn interesting!
I don't relate to everything Marya Hornbacher says. But then again, in a way, that's one of her points: You can't shove us all in a box and slap a label on it. Everybody has their own dark, twisted, little path to follow...
However, she says "When I got to treatment the first time, I was not one of the emaciated ones... because I was not the very picture of sick, I was embarrassed." Now this little paragraph probably sums up the experience for all of us. We never feel sick enough, anorexic enough. There's this ideal somewhere out there, an ideal with impossibly high standards. Those standards that can only be met by wasting away till you're gone. Until you're nothing. Until you're dead.
Another bit that hit home with the force of a blow: "I mentally beg the doctor not to say, when he looks at my charts, Well, you don't -look- anorexic. He does. They always do. Unless you are so emaciated that you can barely walk, people don't think you -look- anorexic."
This is dangerous. Anorexia is a competitive disease. Competitive for those of us who aren't competitive in any other way, and let's face it kids... we're never 'good enough'. And being in recovery is a tough row to hoe, a constant fight. And to be dismissed because we've reached our goal weight, to be told we "don't look anorexic" is pretty damaging. It invalidates us.
And this is BAD. It's bad to have your identity tied up in the fact that you're anorexic. It's wrong to look back with vague nostalgia on the fact that last August, I could push my knees together and still drop a softball between my thighs. That even lying on a mattress hurt, dug into my hips or my spine. That walking bruised the bones in my feet, sending shockwaves all the way up to my jaw. But then again, the fact that I realize that it's wrong is good. Just because the thoughts are there doesn't mean that I have to act on them.
I have other ways of dealing with fear now.
Down in the basement looking at old 45s (can I interject here how INCREDIBLY cool it is to have a CD burner??) and Meg called. I'm leaning against the wall, yapping with her, and I look over at the window sill and think "Funny. I don't remember the cats having any toys that color." So I leeeeaaaaan over as far as the phone cord will allow and then think "Um, that's not a cat toy, it's a dead mouse!"
So I'm waving wildly at Stanley, trying to communicate through hand signals that he needed to look at the window RightNOW. Finally gave up and told Meg I needed to go, dead mouse to dispose of. We're both inching up to the window now, and you have to lean across the couch to do it, and I'm scratching my head (figuratively) in a doubtful fashion and eventually come to the conclusion that no indeedy, this wasn't a mouse. Unless you count bats as mice with wings, that is.
The little guy is mighty damn still and you can see that his eyes are open, and his wings are bent in a really not natural looking position. Stanley says "Poor thing, he'd dead." I guess I transferred my doubtful look to him, because he then said "No, he's definitely dead. Look at his eyes. Here, blow on him if you don't believe me."
Now you'd think after almost 17 years of marriage, I would've learned something. But oh no, not me. I crawl up on the couch on my hands and knees, lean against the back and blow on the bat. Who then immediately decides that wasn't what he was looking forward to and that maybe I should've brushed my teeth first.
I kid you not... that thing opened its eyes to the size of dinner plates and its mouth to the size of a great white's and somehow managed to hiss AND clack its teeth together all in the same movement. It was like a freakin' horror movie! Okay, I admit it... I shrieked like a girl. And somehow got back on my feet and away from the couch in about one tenth of a second. Sent Stanley and Reesa flying. Hey, but I had an excuse! In that nanosecond I'm thinking: 1. Bat is not dead, but sick. 2. Bats carry rabies. 3. This bat REALLY wants a piece of me. 4. I don't particularly want rabies.
I'm not scared of bats, honest. I've touched them before, I've bought bat houses, encouraged them in the crawl space over the carport. But I was convinced that this one had a death warrant in its little jaws with my name on it.
Then ensues the Mikey debate... "I'm not touching it, you touch it." "-I'm- not touching it, you touch it!" "I know, lets get Mari. She'll touch anything!" Poor little guy, I don't know which of us was the most nervous. Put on a huge pair of leather gloves, and gently encouraged him towards one of those Rubber Maid shampoo caddys from the bathroom. *grin* Yeah, and that was about the extent of the assistance I received! Well, except for someone being kind enough to open the basement door for me.
Deposited him in the ivy just outside the door, and crouched down to see what he'd do. For those who have never seen bats walk using the claw tips on the end of their wings, it's pretty damn cool. He ruffled around until he got his wings folded right, then walked down to the grass. And then he was gone... A slightly wobbly trajectory until he cleared the neighbor's car, and he disappeared into the night.
And I had to go have a drink.
1. Yeah, it feels good to have somebody get at all the tense muscles in your shoulders and neck and back. But it doesn't feel any better than getting your hair brushed or your back rubbed by a SigO at home. In fact, I'd go so far as to say those things feel -better- than a professional massage.
2. If I ever really need the money, I could probably deal with prostitution. I found it remarkably easy to distance myself from the thought "Well, gee. This is a complete stranger touching nekkid me in somewhat intimate ways." Always been able to do the same thing at the doctor's office. *snicker* Probably a good thing, considering some of the medical shit I've been through...
"The nature of the beast." I forget that sometimes, with feeling so good recently. Forget that I've felt good before, and the supports still gave way. It's a nasty, insidious little disease, anorexia. Dr. Jajodia says it's like being an alcoholic... it's always going to be there, just waiting for a chink in the armor. And because of the progress I've made I'll "have so much farther to fall." Not that she's trying to drag me down, or deny that I am SO much better than I was this time last year. Just that I need to realize that I'm not cured. In remission, and with perseverance and strength I've got a good chance of always being in remission. But there is no cure.
I actually got up the guts to ask her something I've had rattling around in the back of my mind for awhile now, a fear that I couldn't even voice until today. I told her that I was terrified that teaching and working with kids had become something I've buried myself in because it's safe, and that I'm looking for my (previously non-existent) self-esteem through work. Um, if she'd had streamers and confetti, I think the woman would've thrown them. As it was she jumped out of her chair with a huge grin.
"THERE!"
I jumped about a foot.
"Do you see the improvement you've made? Do you -hear- yourself?"
I was glad she was excited, but still a little lost as to the reason.
"When I first started seeing you, you would NEVER have had that kind of insight. Do you have any idea how much in denial you were? I would talk to you and know you weren't hearing a single thing. This is SO good that you were able to say that, that you realize that possibility. I knew it... But I wanted -you- to be the one to bring it up."
Well, the conversation continued on along the lines of I have a disease. Because of, or maybe hand-in-hand with, I have an addictive personality. It's all or nothing in my books. And Dr. Jajodia's fear is that I'll invest everything I have into teaching, but that the first time I hit a snag, I'm going to crash. And she pointed out again how much further I have to fall this time.
Scary as shit to think about. And she's right... Falling from this height? I don't think I'd survive. But to balance that out, she says it's excellent that I've gained introspection. I question things now. I talk back, both to myself and to others. I can slap my hands over my ears and drown out the voices. These are all pretty damn good signs that I'll come out on the positive end of this thing. Requirements for that? Continued Prozac, continued therapy. Okay, cool, I can live with that. Literally.
