Skip to main content

Is this the one you can't come back from?

What do you do when this blow feels like the blow you can't come back from? When you've been knocked down over and over and over again, and you keep pulling yourself back up, does there come a point when you just stay down?

Hanging by a thread. Dealing with every challenge, every struggle. We took every hit and carried on. But this? I don't know how to survive this.

There's a quotation that says something to the effect of "if you're going through hell, keep going." Apparently Winston Churchill said it. I remember it from some disposable country song they used to play on the radio. Do we keep going through hell because we know we can make it out through the other side? Or because we literally have no other option?

You bury yourself in the work. The work is still there. Of course it is.

Omnipresent.

Never-ceasing.

There will always be kids that need you.

So you walk back in and you do your job. Possibly because you just don't know what else to do, but also because it's your damn job.

You don't make it about you. Because it's not about you. It's not about your pain, your struggle. All of that is irrelevant. Don't think about tomorrow, absolutely don't think about next year. Just do the job.

It's all you have.

I am so tired. Tired of standing up at the front of that room and giving the same damn speech. For two years. So many times. We're stronger together. Take care of each other. We'll get through this. I am here for you. Speaking of hope when only a few weeks, few months later there will be a new crisis. I can't keep doing this.

But I give the speech anyway. And I add that this time I really need to lean on my kids as much as I let them lean on me. And they all group hug me. And I have enough strength to get through the day. And the rest of the week. And I keep going, for a little longer at least.

What will be the blow from which I finally cannot come back? Try not to let it be this one.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some of My Favorite Team-Builders

So after my last post about my Mini-Camp, I got some requests for specific descriptions of some of the team-building games I do. I chose four that I think are among the best (and actually lend themselves to written description) and I've written about those below: Hammer in the Circle Name Game: So I do this game with a big inflatable hammer, like this: You don't need the big inflatable hammer for this game, but it helps. I've done it before with a rolled up newspaper (which you have to be really careful because that can potentially hurt more than an inflatable hammer) and just with tagging by hand. Here is how the game works: Students get in a circle and go around quickly with everyone saying their first name. One person is in the middle of the circle with the hammer, and their objective is to get out of the circle. They do this by (GENTLY AND NON-VIOLENTLY, I always tell my kids) bopping someone in the circle. The only way you can be "safe" is to the...
Post a Comment
Read more

"No plan survives contact with the enemy"

That quotation, "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is a paraphrased version of this quote by Field Marshall Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, a Prussian general who was the architect of the German Wars of Unification in the 19th Century: "The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon's saying: 'I have never had a plan of operations.' Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force." Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke never had to teach middle school children or work in a public school in the early 21st Century, but if he had I am sure the experience would only reinforce his belief that you can have all the plans you want, but once you encounter your first ho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Taking the time to slow down

I tend to move at a breakneck pace with my auditioned choir and push them as hard as I can. For several years now I have wanted to push the limits of what middle school singers can accomplish, and as a result I feel constant pressure, most of it coming from myself, to keep my Prairie Voices working every minute of every rehearsal. We only get 45 minutes a day, and it's gotten worse this year because we have lost 20% of our rehearsal time this year due to this homeroom/character education class that meets every Monday. This school year I have felt like I am constantly under the gun, and that I cannot waste a single second of rehearsal. Yesterday though, I made a conscious effort to slow down. I didn't start warming them up immediately at the bell (though most of them were standing in their spots on the risers at the last bell... finally ...after weeks of me trying to train them to do that), but instead I moved at a more leisurely pace. I talked to a some individual students, t...
Post a Comment
Read more