August Thirteenth

I peeked outside between the dusty white blinds, admiring the angelic effect the diffused light had on the room.  The desk beside me was cleared of debris and relics from its previous occupant, yet it did not look barren or depressed.  It laid stretched out invitingly as if waiting to receive a new friend.  I raised a finger to touch the laminate wood but stopped myself.  I was being watched.

Her blue eyes met mine, and I smiled sheepishly, still unsure how vulnerable I should be.  I walked back over to the door where she stood, and she opened a cupboard for me casually like she was showing someone an old lawnmower instead of the manifestation of a life-long dream.  I noted the soft blue of the cabinetry and sighed in relief.  The airiness the color lent to the room was beautiful and spa-like.  I imagined a salt lamp on the counter beside a stack of my favorite books.  Jane Eyre, The Three Musketeers, Pope Joan, East of Eden.  Then, just as soon as I was ushered into the room, I was invited out.  I could feel my eyes grow hot with longing.  I did not want to leave.

My blonde companion closed and locked the door as we entered the hallway.  Though she had been nothing but kind and helpful, I desperately wished she were not there.  I knew it would be months before I was allowed in that room again, and I needed more time.  Alone.  I had spent three weeks trying to process the changes occurring in my life and found myself unable to until I stood on the pale pink carpet, surrounded by glossy desks and blank bulletin boards.

I am going to be a teacher.

It seems strange to admit, for though I am not superstitious, keeping this news to myself feels safe like I am protecting this precious infant thing from all that would harm it.  My usual proclivity to overshare has been tempered by the incessant, nagging fear that I’ve stepped into an alternate universe where dreams come true and dragons exist.  Me, a teacher?  Suddenly, every bit of confidence I have spent years accumulating has gone up in smoke as I consider the implications of my new title.  Am I smart enough?  Am I brave enough?  Will my students love me or dread coming to my class?  Can I reach the unreachable?  Can I uplift the downtrodden?  Will I be able to balance work and family?  Will I ever sleep again?

I have scoured Pinterest, studied the school website ad nauseum, picked the brains of my fellow teacher friends, created spreadsheets, read books, watched TED Talks, and still found time to stare blankly into the abyss of my imploding brain.  I never thought I would reach this day.  Every time I had to take a break from school, every child I bore, every move that took me further from BYU and the goals I made there seemed to push this goal just a little more out of reach.  Times and seasons, I reminded myself.  There are times and seasons in our lives where we must assume certain roles and put aside others.  For the last eight years, the role I have assumed with full gusto has been that of a mother, and I would not change one moment of the time I have spent at home with my children.  But as my children will both be in school this fall, a new season begins where my role as a teacher extends beyond Annie and Sam.  Until now, that season always seemed so very far away, but suddenly it has a start date.  August 13.

Plight of the Mother

On Friday night, Sam and I had some one-on-one time while Annie was away playing with a friend.  I asked my son what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to play pretend with me.  I was the doctor, and he was the dad.  He had two babies, Flowers and Forty-One.  I had a doctor kit filled with Legos.  I don’t often have time to sit and play with my kids like this, but I relish in these moments because children's play is a window into their minds, and I get to experience the world from their perspective.  Let me tell you, Daddy Sam was adorable.  He was so tender and loving to Flowers and Forty-One.  Both kids were very sickly and constantly throwing up, but when I (the doctor) tried to help take care of them, Daddy Sam would brush me away and say, “No.  I know how to take care of my sick babies.”  So, I sat on the couch and watched him nurture for the rest of the night, marveling at his perception of what I do day-in and day-out.  What I learned was Sam thinks being a parent is cleaning up a lot of puke and putting drops in all the facial orifices.  And, I mean, he’s not wrong.

This was a tough week for me.  That sweet, nurturing boy has been struggling with some health issues that doctors can’t seem to explain.  Sometimes it means staying up with him all night while he writhes in pain and begs me to make the hurting stop.  Sometimes it’s rubbing lotion all over his entire hive and blister-cover body.  Sometimes it’s cleaning up spontaneous vomit that arrives without other symptoms that might give a clue to the cause.   But this week, after two bad nights in a row, I decided to have Sam tested for allergies, hoping to find what was triggering these episodes.  In a bittersweet turn of events, he tested negative for everything.  It was a relief not to have to take away his favorite foods or drastically change his lifestyle, but it was also frustrating.  These results have left us in the dark, still scrambling for answers as we try to keep this boy healthy.

While these medical issues have been a part of my life as long as Sam has been in it, it felt insurmountably difficult this week because of that poignant moment watching my son clean up pretend vomit off the chin of his “baby.”  I feel incredibly helpless.  I have tried so many things to make Sam’s life more comfortable and had so little success that the constant maintenance of his health has become the cornerstone of Sam’s vision of adulthood.  To cope with my perceived ineptitude, I think I overcompensate by trying to help others.  I try to lift them when they are down, make them laugh, fill their bellies with delicious things, and flood them with hope and positivity.  I lay awake with racing thoughts of Who can I help?  Where can I volunteer?  How can I make someone’s world better?  But I love too deeply sometimes, and I take on other people’s impossible hurts only to realize that I am just as helpless curing their pain as I am curing my son.

Perhaps this is just the plight of the mother.

Please Hire Me

This may sound conceited, but I have a list of jobs I think I could do pretty well.  I bump into scenarios at the grocery store, or the bank, or see things on a show that wakes something inside me—something suppressed by being a stay-at-home mom for the better part of a decade.  And this thing, this astonishingly egocentric thought screams out for validation by declaring myself more capable and superior at a task than a person who has perhaps dropped thousands of dollars and spent years studying the very skill.  Okay, so this sounds extremely conceited.

In my arrogance, I refuse to believe I am the only person with this kind of ego.  Does no one else watch a Hallmark Christmas movie and think, I could do this.  Someone hire me!  Here, I shall write one for you in less than five minutes to prove my point.

Pan into a quaint little town where an unusually pretty shopkeeper sells specialty merchandise or services to a town that loves her questionably too much.  Cut to a conversation with quirky friend/coworker where it is revealed that the shop used to belong to a deceased parent.  Zoom in on shopkeeper’s face as she opens the mail and finds that her failing company is once again behind on mortgage payments and will be evicted on Christmas Eve.  Cue seemingly duchy city-slicker, with impeccably tailored jawline, who is also down on his luck, and reluctantly decides to visit his high school stomping grounds.  He bumps into the shopkeeper and basically annoys her during the most stressful moment of her life while she unexplainably overcomes baggage from a previous relationship and falls for the city-slicker, probably because of a reluctant, but well-timed kiss under the mistletoe.  Together they find a way to save the store, but not before having a huge misunderstanding when she sees him hug his cousin, but instead of saying, “Hey you two. What’s going on here?  You his sister or something?”  She storms away and spends twenty minutes of the movie refusing to explain to him why she’s upset because no one knows how to communicate in these Hallmark movies.  The end.  Someone, please hire me.  I will make you all the moneys.

Another job I feel confident I could do quite well is voice work for children’s shows.  I, too, can over-enthusiastically sound surprised when the mail arrives an hour late or when I need a circle to complete the toy car that will rush to the park where the mayor will honor the only person capable of saving the town: a five-year-old.  I can also make a litany of grunting noises should a fight scene be included in the script.  Just thought I slid that one in there.

Sometimes I stroll through the greeting card section at Dollar Tree and look through the dramatic stock photos beautifully framed with some vague, cheesy message, and I think, I could do that.  I have an English degree, after all.  If I can’t BS some generic greeting card prose, then I should just return my diploma.

Exibit A

Exibit B

Exibit C

A couple of months ago, I was at a junior high play where a young teen apologetically handed me the most hideous program I’ve ever seen.  The words were crooked on the page, all in a basic serif font, and the inside of the program was upside down.  I don’t even want to talk about the misspelled cast names.  No need to verbally murder the woman who threw that thing together.  When my husband saw it, he turned to me and whispered, “They should have asked you to create this program.”  Well, I don’t want to brag, but I do have a little publishing experience I gleaned at the feet of my uber talented mother.  I chuckled and imagined how I would improve the layout and overall look of the horribly folded piece of paper.  Basically, my husband is an enabler.

I know that I am over-simplifying many of these professions, but for the moment, leave me to my dreams.  Allow me the luxury of self-aggrandizing validation whilst I while away my lonely days at home.  And let me know if you have ever come across something and thought, Someone is getting paid for this?  I need to get in on this action.  Hire me!