This was a LONG week.  And in some ways a really sad week.

Sad mostly because it became clear to me just how empty and defeating my all the “happy” things I use to distract myself really are.  Sad somewhat because Friday was the first day in a year that I didn’t want to go to work simply because I didn’t want to handle it.

So, second things first.  Just over a year ago I left the worst job I will ever have.  I was an office manager for a totally crazy woman.  I mean bat-shit crazy.  Everything I did was wrong, she was super passive-aggressive, she completely hated me, anytime I asked for help she yelled at me, the patients treated me like shit and she told me that was part of my job, I worked weekends without overtime, and once when I was in a car accident out of state she made me find my own replacement to cover for me.  Just kind of a nightmare start to finish.  Previous to that I had been unemployed for about 20 months, so I was grateful to get a job in the first place, but that gratitude was cold comfort when dragging my hungover ass out of bed knowing that I would hate my day so much it would drive me right back to the wine bottle.  (In all fairness, I was an alcoholic before I started that job, it’s not a case of “if I’d never had that job I wouldn’t have become an alcoholic.”)  December 30, 2011 was my last day, and I slept for almost 24 hours out of sheer relief.

As much as my first year of teaching has been (at points) hilarious, humiliating, joyful, discouraging, confusing, disastrous, and always always exhausting, I have never wanted a day off because I was afraid of going in.  A week of escalating encounters with my problem student finally hit the fan when Thursday after dismissal she told her mother that another student pushed her down and hit her.  Her mother marched into my classroom to demand what I was going to do about this.  Immediately my bullshit meter hit red and I placated her by saying I’d speak to the teacher of the “offending” student.  In addition to all the other problems that make this student a problem, she also has repeatedly lied to me about other students’ behavior.  I informed the other teacher and we agreed on a plan to work it out the next day.  But that didn’t stop me from worrying all night.  I got very little sleep and by the time I was heading to work Friday morning I was so keyed up I started crying on the bus.  I felt lucky that I had gotten on the bus at all.  The whole time that I was showering, dressing and packing my lunch my stomach was churning, the stress and uncertainty and anger of the whole situation that has been building inside me since September making me just want to crawl back into bed and cry.  Finally admitting to myself that I am afraid to be in my classroom alone because I just don’t know when this woman is going to come storming in with the next lies she’s been fed and all her indignation over my tyranny just about pushed me over the edge to calling in sick.

But I didn’t call in sick.  I faced it.  I, with adrenaline rushing through my veins and just plain sadness pulling at the edges of my mind, went in, asked questions, and found out the facts.  She was lying.  She didn’t even deny it.  Nor did she look in anyway ashamed.  Essentially she had no recognition that lying to her mother, and her teacher, and accusing another student of harming her was wrong in any way.  She walked out of my classroom at  the end of the day with a “what’s the big deal?” look on her face.  And part of me wondered if she didn’t have to right attitude.

Even wondering if she were right was part of the primary thing that was making me sad, or why I was sad.  I’ve been trying to work on really being aware of how I spend my time, of what I am really doing with my life.  It has made me more conscious of when I’m being productive, when I’m relaxing and when I’m just fucking wasting time.  Funny how once you start looking at it it becomes terrifying just how much time you’re wasting.  And a lot of that time that I’m wasting I’m wasting trying to make myself feel better about the stresses and pains and demands of my life.  This is different than relaxing.  I’m all for relaxing, it’s totally necessary.  But there is a difference between relaxing (taking a break from work to do something I enjoy) and avoiding (doing anything to distract myself from either thinking or doing anything).  Slowly but surely it’s been creeping up on me that all my avoiding activities are hollow and unfulfilling.  And this week admitting to myself that no amount of ice cream, no trashy romance novel, no crappy TV show (different from good TV), and even no nap was really truly going to comfort me, to alleviate my distress, to give me purpose and direction, to allow me to experience the love that God has for me.  I have finally come to a point where my distraction are not distractions anymore, I can see through them, and know I won’t come out any better on the other side, so what is the point.  And this made me sad.  It made me sad to shed another illusion, to take another step away from the myopic insulation of ephemeral “comforts” and face with more honesty the unknown demands of who God wants me to be.

So I’m facing tomorrow a little more honest.  Honest that I won’t love every day of my job.  Honest that my distraction are detrimental.  Honest that I have so much farther to go.

(1 Year, 3 Months, 23 Days Sober)