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Last night a former student contacted me.  Former from quite early in my career, maybe around the year 2000.  I tried to figure out his age based on when I think I taught him and I came up with somewhere between 27 and 32.  At first I assumed it was a pocket call, because he and I don't talk on the phone.  We have a Facebook-only kind of friendship that has consisted of an initial hello and not much since.  I didn't pick up.

He called again a few minutes later, dashing my belief.  This time I assumed he was drunk, because who tries to call their former teacher at 10:00pm on New Year's Eve unless they're drunk and stupid?  I didn't answer it that time either because I don't want to talk to a drunk and stupid former student.

After that he sent an instant message, and that got me curious.  What could inspire this kind of determination to get in touch with me after all this time?  So I answered - in text form.  He wasn't drunk.  (He's a recovering addict.)  He was sad.  Which I guess is worse, but I'm a sucker for that.  His mother had just died.  I believed myself to be in for a long draining conversation about life and death... but he didn't seem to want that after all.  He just wanted to chat, to reminisce about being fourteen, I guess, and how much he loved Drama class back in those days.

It was all kind of baffling.  He kept telling me that I had brought him back from his cocaine addiction.  And that I was responsible for his current success.  And several of his friends' too.  It makes no sense, really, because I was kind of a shit teacher back in those days, making up my lesson plans in the car on the way to work, scrambling to fill the time with something, anything, to keep the kids busy and not causing mayhem.  I didn't remember a lot of the life-altering experiences he credited me with orchestrating.

He asked if I would be back on the Winter Prairies any time soon, to which the answer is a million times NO.  He said he would be here in April.  He wants to connect.  I feel ambivalent.

The idea that I could have been inspiring is lovely.  But I have trouble believing it, honestly, because I know I was a sloppy disorganized mess.  This is a strange career where you have no real idea who you impact or how until they come back to tell you nearly twenty years later, and even then you don't know if you can believe them.

But still, it was interesting to be put back in touch with my youngest career self, my energy and my ridiculous optimism.  I think I like that version of myself, even though she's always in a bit of a scramble.  I like the way I had time to waste time making kids feel known.  I hope I still do that well, now that I do it with purpose.  I hope the lack of spontaneity these days doesn't make it seem less genuine or honest.

Also, I suppose that when people go out of their way to tell us that we've done something good for them, we are not meant to be suspicious of it, but rather to savour it, and to be grateful for having received it.  It is a rather rare and special gift.  I will wrap it back up and allow myself to reopen it again when I need it.