Ramblings of a Midwest Woman

 How is it still the year 2020?  As a teacher, I feel like this year has had a lot of lows. We went from in the spring caring about teachers and celebrating them for taking care of our kids and getting them lunches and doing the impossible overnight to now, we criticize everything that they aren’t doing well or enough of. Why haven’t they called the parents multiple times? Why is my kid failing? Why can’t we be in the building? Why do we have to wear masks? Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?  I get it. I really do. This isn’t the way we wanted this year to go. Parents are at their wits end, (teachers are parents too!), and teachers are starting to really question their choice of career or whether they should retire. I know I have at least thought about it, and I think others would be lying if they said otherwise. I’ve seen a few good teachers jump ship, and it makes me sad. Schools would be better with those teachers still in them. Yet,  I feel like teachers have become danci...

Hello again, Perhaps you are sick of the topic of mental health. I understand. I often, too, feel sick of dealing with my mental health. Unfortunately, I cannot break up with my depression or anxiety; my brain and I are committed to one another til' death do us part. As previously mentioned on this blog, I have been on a journey for almost ten years to improve my mental health.  Ten years?  Yes, it's been that long, and despite my struggles, it has genuinely improved over time. I'm more equipped to deal with new traumas, can identify signs that I need outside help, and have developed the fortitude to wait the feelings and thoughts out. Furthermore, I know not to trust everything my brain tells me is true. I take sertraline, which is an antidepressant that helps me deal with my irrational brain and think through things.  I was doing better....but then, well 2020 happened, and like many others, this year has been a lot to deal with: pandemic, elections, job changes, and hea...

 I remember the last time we had a Friday the 13th. It was in March. We were watching Governor Waltz’s update in my 7th grade English class after lunch. The students waited impatiently to see if schools would close for Covid-19. He said schools would remain open and nothing would change, but over the course of that weekend, we switched the distance learning. Those words were new to us then.  What students cheered for then, now they know the difference, and most of them would prefer to stay in school with their friends and teachers.  I want that too.  Today, we were notified that our school will be shifting to full distance learning after Thanksgiving break. I have so much to do, am losing teaching days, and am sad I won’t get to be in-person with any of my kiddos.  Saying that, I know this is the right thing to do, and I hope after the holidays, we will be able to be together again.  I’ve been lucky to get to know my kids at school and not through a screen,...

My therapist has said it a couple times now, but I'm pretty sure I didn't want to hear it. A possibility? Sure. Confirmed diagnosis? I don't think so. Slow down there for a second. Yet, as this time of year rolls around again - the family holidays and what not - I know deep down she is right.  I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It's odd and yet liberating to say those words to myself let alone others. I have PTSD, and the traumatic events/time period is from almost exactly ten years ago.  How can something from ten years ago still be messing with my brain?  Perhaps, that may not seem odd to others, having their trauma affect their day-to-day life and demeanor, but I also thought my struggles were mostly, if not entirely, from my already established mental illnesses, depression and anxiety. Yet, it makes sense that all of these intertwine themselves together. I had depression and anxiety before that time period, but the increased symptoms and struggle around this...

 The days are shrinking. The sun hides more often than it appears, leaving the sky a muted hue, a depressing pallor. Maybe it's the weather. The lack of sunshine, the cold setting in, and the restriction of being stuck indoors. It could be one of these things, all of these things, or something else, but regardless, each year, around this time, I feel the heaviness start to press behind my eyes. That mix of exhaustion, apathy, and inescapable sorrow that makes up my mental illness - depression. I'm aware I carry this issue or obstacle (not really sure what to call it) with me all year round. Yet, when the days grow short and the end of the holidays appear, I always feel the worst. A clear pattern obviously. Perhaps it's some unresolved trauma, which seems likely, because there are wounds this time of year from years past that linger. Unhealed. Open. Old.  Could it be the Christmases before, during, and after my parents' divorce? The awkward holidays, once my favorite tim...

Stay please - the nights are long without you. These brief moments before departure feel inadequate to calm the loneliness, I feel, the body aching for embrace, those strips of steel that fasten me together, like a locket long worn. Beautiful despite decay - worn finishings. I've always needed you - that old cliche remains true. Some things never change. Mayhaps evolving, adapting, this long metamorphosis where we grew up. Children no more. The truth is, I have always loved you somehow, in some way. Love looks different as we age. The beat of my heart is the constancy, assurance. I will wait til these nights once become days again. Softly, whispering, stay... while you go, knowing one day you will return to me.

 Just when I think I'm getting the hang (or at least a grip) of this teaching during Covid, I have a uh....challenging day. I left my mic off during the Google Meet, didn't upload the handouts I'm using in person, or adapt it for online purpose, or perhaps, I'm just struggling with good ol' classroom management, trying to project through a mask and above the many voices of rambunctious, inattentive adolescence.  Each morning, I struggle to get out the door earlier and earlier. My body heavy and wanting to return to my soft, foam-topped mattress where my achy bones ache just a little less.  Now the list begins: Shower, brush teeth, find clothes, put on make up, fix hair, make lunch and coffee, make sure I have supplies for pumping (yes I am still breastfeeding), nurse my son, take the dogs out, wait a minute, did I eat breakfast? Crap....no time for real sustenance...cereal will have to do even though it messes up my blood sugar and I'll feel starving by lunch ti...

 In our short, twenty minute class period, I had my Composition students go outside and use their senses to create a piece of writing. As always, I write with my students to practice my own skills but also to provide them with an example/model. Here is my short piece from today: As the smell of fresh coffee clings to my clothes, I step outside the school building. My students stand before me, quiet, waiting, wondering what the heck am I having them do. I understand those thoughts; once, I too have teachers who made me do “odd” things that I always really enjoyed. The weirder the teacher the more comfortable I felt. Now, as an adult, I attempt to fill such large shoes, trying to inspire and instruct young minds. Some days go better than others. However, this fast-paced Friday flew by peacefully, and after a rushed and rocky start, the ground feels firmer beneath my feet. Even the weather has improved suggesting sunnier days ahead. The wind pushes my hair and hugs my mask-free fa...

Over the years, I've considered myself fairly educated and aware of the injustices in America, especially historically, but the older I get and the more I learn, the more I realize I know nothing at all. In admitting that, I am silent because I don't have answers for what we as a society should do. Instead, I am trying to listen and learn.  I've noticed this is hard for people to do. I see it every time I teach workshops to my students, where they have to listen to the feedback of others while sitting silent. I tell them that if they sit there constantly trying to defend themselves and their writing, they aren't really listening to the critiques of their classmates. It's no different when it comes to this poignant moment for civil justice against the police brutality of black lives. If white people are constantly trying to prove "we aren't racist" or that "we're the exception" or saying "all lives matter", I don't think we a...

Working from home, specifically teaching from home, has become a whole different challenge. Though I am pretty good at creating curriculum, and through this, I have become adept at creating online curriculum, I feel disconnected from my students. Even though I hold Google Meets, only a small handful of students usually show up, and honestly, I'm not great at online meetings; it feels incredibly awkward. And when students don't do the work or do subpar work, I email them, but I have no idea if they read my heartfelt emails. It's not the same as being able to talk to them in person and hold them to those higher expectations. It doesn't work for every student, but it works better than this. This is not the teacher I want to be. Furthermore, with my mental health (I am a chronic sufferer of generalized anxiety and depression), I am finding it hard to get into a healthy routine. I can't sleep much at night even though I lay in bed and try. Then, when it is time to st...

Good morning world. As I sit here typing, I feel my head spinning. As far as I've come with my depression and anxiety, the events of the last week have left me mentally bereft. My brain is telling me to panic! at the corona, but I'm trying not to. I'm using all of my mental power to stay grounded and sane amidst events never before seen in my lifetime. Obviously, this is not the first outbreak of a disease the world has seen, but what caught me off guard was how quickly everything changed. Just last week, I was having normal classes with my students. We were testing, joking, reading, and getting through the days. Our band and choir kids were counting down the mere days until their trip to Disney, for which they had worked so hard. Even Friday, our governor, Tim Walz, said that schools would remain open. That decree would change only two days later. I think the most concerning thing is that the students have two weeks off with no work not because things will return to norm...