Boy, am I glad school is out! Thank the Lord! I made it! Thank you, everyone, for your support. For listening to (or reading about) me whining, for saying "You can do it!" and "It will be worth it!" and "You will be great!" and "I know you will get a job!" Honestly, I am so glad I will never have to see a few of those kids again! No more waking up at 5:30 five days a week (although I'll do that occasionally for the summer job). No more dressing up in heels and skirts most days. I don't have to wear makeup all summer if I don't want to! I won't have to send anyone to the office, or shush kids while they're reading, or make them learn about adjectives for three months! Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee!
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No more dressing up in heels and skirts! No more full makeup in the mornings! I won't have a desk with my cute sticky notes on it and my bulletin board with pictures students drew for me. I won't write the schedule on the whiteboard every day or fill out my planner with them. I put my blood, sweat and tears into this year! (Blood = so many paper cuts!!!) I spent more time with those kids and teachers than with my husband! They were my family! And I'm so sad about never seeing most of them again. They are such cool, funny, interesting, brilliant kids. Some of them will be our doctors, nurses, lawyers, actors, inventors, video game makers, artists, bankers, librarians, authors, teachers, and dentists. (Some of them will be our oil field workers, construction guys, burger flippers, and Wal-Mart greeters--also valuable vocations.) They will get their braces off and drive cars and go to prom and someday be real people! I feel so valued and lucky to have been a small part of shaping them. And I will still think about them very often and remember the funny, awesome, stressful, and touching times with them and wonder how they are doing. I hope that, very occasionally, they remember Mrs. N for a little while, too. Hopefully I taught them just one thing they'll use or treasure or enjoy. Hopefully I made a little bit of a difference.
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P.S. I wish I could show you pictures of the rafting trip on Tuesday! But I can't legally show pictures of other people's kids. I might have to post one, though, with the faces blurred out, because it's great....
1 comment:
I love the way you wrote this, Heather! I often feel like a split personality about well, almost everything, and struggle with writing about things, because I don't necessarily want to put a negative or positive spin on something that elicits so many different emotions!
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