Man, I feed off people. Tonight was back to school open house night and I felt so energized afterwards, even though it was more or less a 12 hour day on my feet. What I love about my job is the way I just get to exercise love constantly.
In my errand driving about after open house (because why not make a long day longer?), I was reflecting on how much I love loving people and on how much I enjoy watching my students grow up. I don't always get to pull them aside in a meaningful way and tell them how proud I am of the men and women they are becoming as they move to upperclassman-hood. Or how I notice them emerging as leaders in our school in a positive way. Or how their smiles just lift me up when I need it most. I try to tell them as often as I can. It's never as much as I feel, though. But it makes me so thankful to be doing the work that I do and so thankful that so much of my job is just loving them. That's the high octane fuel behind the magic that goes down in room 141.
I was also reflecting on how much different now that my schedule has shifted from almost all upperclassmen to almost all freshmen. I do miss a lot about the older kids: wittier banter, more mature course content, deeper discussions because they have more life experience, the fact that they get more of my jokes, more challenging and personal questions that they ask, the different flavor of camaraderie that forms between us, their increasing comfort in their own skins. But there are also gifts that come with teaching the babies of the school, one of which is that I get to watch them become for another two or three years. I get to cheer them on from the sidelines and enjoy that afterglow of "Whew we made it through her class and it wasn't so bad after all! In fact, I'm proud of myself." And every once in a while, one of them comes back, humbled and grateful, and apologizes for being a butt in my class last year, last semester, three years ago-- long after I've forgotten their transgressions (unless they were really funny).
Sometimes this profession seems uncomfortably transient. Every year, we have to learn a whole new group of 75 or 100 or so individuals (more if you're on semesters!). They move in and out of our district constantly. Sometimes it feels like we never get a chance to settle in before everything changes again -- let's not even talk about the mandates! But more and more I'm feeling the connection. I'm not sure if it's that I'm getting better and building those connections more quickly or if it's that I'm learning to love and savor more completely. Or maybe it's my new-ish (in the last half a decade or so) resolve to try to see people through God's eyes and reflect His light in them back to them (Namaste! Namaste! Namaste!). My life-pace has slowed some, which is hard to believe with three-almost-four kids, but I'm more able to savor than I used to be. Or that savoring is becoming more of a way of moving through the world rather than something I have to really stop and think about doing. I'm crazy grateful for it.
Other little awesome tidbit: For the first time in my life, I think, I walked out of a multi-store mall run and the bag from Sephora was the biggest one I was carrying. It felt pretty cool, though I'm not sure why. Perhaps, in part, because it was filled with gifts for people I love! Now that's a happy-making thing.
Mmm what a nice evening! Now I just need a solid back massage and some reflexology on my feets and we'll be good to go. Or, more realistically, just sleep.
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