I gotta remember this. A mantra. Things don't stay the same. So when everything feels like it sucks, that is temporary. But when you are in the suckage, it doesn't feel temporary, you know? And this morning, my brain is focused on all the should-haves. I should have done a better job of... Mostly helping my offspring. Elderboy is experiencing a lot of the same symptoms I am. The Depression kind. And I feel like I should have recognized earlier. And the symptoms for him of not completing work or being overwhelmed or staring off into space instead of... doing things. We have so much time. We have all the time in the world. Why aren't we doing things? Why haven't I written the great American novel? (Well, the LGBT teen-fiction Great American Novel because that's where my focus is lately.) Why haven't I done a better job of tracking down students? Why haven't I been funnier. More enthusiastic. More innovative. I'm boring as hell. Why hasn't he been able to follow through on... any of the things I haven't bothered him to follow through on? We are all in our own little worlds. In the same house. Things that shouldn't be hard... are hard. Or chasing down my students. Or reaching out to friends and family either to support them or to be supported. Making mental-health care appointments. See, this should be top of my radar. It has been on the bottom. Not until last week did I schedule anything for elderboy. And I still haven't scheduled anything for me. As if mental health has not been affected by any of this. I mean, I left the one message for my Psych NP and got my meds changed. But that isn't the same as actually talking to someone. But: what is the point? What are they going to say?
I don't even know my therapist. Plus I always figure that in all this, they have better things to do. They have bigger fires to put out. They must be stressed too. I don't need to add to that. I mean, their job has to be even more nightmarish than mine, right? I am just watching my students slowly drop off the radar. Becoming less interested. Turning more nocturnal. At the start of this 18 of my 19 kids checked in with me in-person every morning. Now it is 2. And they come because they are the caretakers of my class. They are checking on me. Making sure I'm okay. That me and my co-teacher are still healthy. They worry. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |