Occasionally I reread things I wrote in 2008, when my sister was alive and drowning. And drowning and drowning. J was just a little girl who wanted nothing more than to have an Aeropostale hoodie. S was commuting 3 hours on the highway to work every day, and I had four puppies who smothered me with love and saliva every time I sat down. I was a theatre teacher with hordes of moody and artistic teenagers needing my support and being prickly and needing more support. And l barely recognize me, I barely recognize any of us. I miss some pieces of that life, so much so that thinking about them has to be titrated in order to bear it. And some aspects of that life were so hard I cannot remember how we survived them.
If I found myself back in 2008 now with my current brain I would slow my pace and let myself be more open to my own feelings. Instead of holding the lids on all the compartments so carefully I think I would open them up, at least a couple of them, and see what that feels like. See if I can function anyway, or maybe give myself permission not to function so well all the time. And in that process maybe I would give them all permission not to function so well all the time either.
On Friday I went to my old school to be a substitute teacher for a day. I maintain the teacher credentials so I can continue to do mediation work for the union, actually, and not to be a substitute teacher, but I was invited in a way that was tempting and so I went. Most of the day was very pleasant until I had a bit of a run-in with two fourteen year old boys who thought they were going to run the show and who made me use the scary loud fast talking finger-in-face don’t you DARE teacher voice that I have not used in a decade, and I felt the old familiar internal chaos of having to work hard not to burst out laughing because these two boys looked so scared of me and I know that they could easily pick me up and throw me if they decided to. I can still intimidate teenage boys if necessary, and that is a little bit fun.
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