I stayed late at work today.  I made math packets for the next week, photocopied two vocabulary lessons, and finished up the pile of grading that had taken over my desk.  It was not that I was overcome with an excess of energy.  Rather the opposite.  We went on a field trip this morning, and no matter how successful the field trip (today was stellar) it is an exhausting activity.  No, even ready to climb into bed, I stayed at work, making sure that I had everything done for tomorrow that I possibly could.

I know I will be terribly sad tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my friends’ daughters, Olivia and Emma, passing from this life into the eternal rest of the Lord.

In relation to large historical events, the day of is the most memorable.  I will never forget where I was when I was first told of the events unfolding on the east coast the morning of September 11, 2001.  In contrast, with the personal tragedies of the individual life, it is the day before that occupies the mind.

I know what I was doing a year ago tomorrow.  I was staring at my phone constantly, waiting for an update that would ease my fear.  I was crying and praying in the school chapel, screaming at God that he would not let the worst happen.  I was taking in the news that two children I had held and played with and heard laugh were lost to their parents and family.  I went to see The Lego Movie with my roommate, simply because I couldn’t understand that news.  (I often go to the movies when someone dies.  It allows me to take in the first few hours of grief in a setting where you are not supposed to talk.)  I was standing with friends at 10 pm, smoking cigarettes in the parking lot in front of my apartment building, at a loss as to what to say, but unable to leave each other.  I don’t need to think about it because it is a part of my heart.

But what was I doing a year ago today?  I’m sure it was pretty much the same as today.  I’m sure I was planning, and prepping, and grading, and bitching about small annoyances that I felt were insurmountable obstacles to my success and happiness as a human being.  I’m sure I was frustrated with my students, and disappointed in myself, and generally irritated with life.  What was I doing?  How was I giving of myself?  Where was I looking for God’s blessings?  Why was I determined to be dissatisfied?  When did I try to imagine the world beyond my own petty concerns and appreciate the gifts I can never repay?

Time and again, the prophets, apostles, Christ himself tells us to be prepared, you don’t know when your hour will come.  I don’t worry about this.  Maybe I should worry about this more, but for the most part, I can take it in stride that God will decide when I am ready, and my job is to do everything I can to be ready.  I struggle with the fact that we cannot know when another’s time is at hand.  It would never cross my mind to wonder, “Is today the day when a family of five becomes a family of three?”  There will always be a day before; a day in which we live without fear of the day that will come, because we do not imagine what that day will be.

No matter what we are told, what we know to be true, what we have experienced before, Holy Thursday will always precede Good Friday.  The two cannot be separated.  A day before, that as years pass and time works upon our memory, becomes both a treasure of last moments of love and a veil of sorrow for missed opportunity.  A day before that forms into a pattern of how we are to approach a day of death.

I cannot stop the pain that tomorrow will bring.  But I have worked today to give myself the best chance of weathering it with as much dignity and charity as possible.  Math lessons don’t make a tragedy any less of a tragedy, but a heart open to the mercy of God makes a tragedy a transformation.

(3 Years, 5 Months, and 27 Days Sober)

It’s not very often that I get to be the person that I want to be.  So of course, when I do have a day like that I’m too exhausted to enjoy it.  I go right to sleep.

Yesterday was the science fair at my school.  I cajoled the middle school science teacher to let my class participate with informational projects, rather than experiments.  I’m not a great science teacher, and by great, what I really mean is not decent at all.  I loved science when I was younger, and I was pretty good at it, but I knew it took effort for me to be good at it, and that wasn’t really what I was into.  Art and literature came much more naturally (despite the fact that my brain is wired for the opposite to be true!), so my complete lack of discipline and followthrough were much less apparent.  I, like most people, like to stay in my comfort zone, so while I have learned to be a competent math teacher, science has always been a bit of an afterthought.

I wanted my students to have something science-y to show for this year.  And, I had a parent volunteer to run the project for me!  Score!  I just had to sit back and grade papers while she took care of my problem for me.

Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong.

Within moments, my mistake was apparent, but I didn’t want to face it.  The parent who wanted to help me ended up creating a a huge mess.  I wasn’t clear about my expectations, probably because I didn’t have any.  I didn’t want to plan anything, and so she had nothing to structure her time by.  For weeks my students were confused, torn between who they should listen to, and growing increasingly bored with what they were doing.  I felt caught too.  I didn’t know how to step in and redirect the project without hurting the parent’s feelings.  I became increasingly frustrated, and the only two school day we had the week last before were a blur of anger and tears on my part.

I was so angry at myself.  I was so angry that I let my own laziness spiral out of control.  I told myself that I “can’t” plan science lessons and projects, when the truth was (and always has been) that I didn’t “want” to do so.  I hurl myself into that trap often; confusing my abilities for my desires.  I was so angry that my students were suffering because I felt like burying my head in the sand.

I started this week with only on goal in mind: find a way for my students to produce the best work possible for the Science Fair Friday after school.  I had to let go that I was going to achieve my plans (good-bye grammar!) and commit to spending all my time up to my eyeballs in animal kingdom and Google Image searches.  After school I took home rough drafts to edit.  Thursday and Friday were devoted entirely to construction paper, scissors, and glue.  My classrooms was a mess.  My back hurt from leaning our short tables all day.  My students got loopy from the glue sticks.  But they worked so hard.  They listened to directions, and communicated within their groups, and in the end they made beautiful projects that they were proud to display with all the other students at the Science Fair.

For two days I was the teacher that I want to be.  I was (for the most part) patient and encouraging.  We got to be creative and fun.  After we finished I put on electronica music and the girls danced around and pretended to be DJs with wet-wipes as their turn-tables.  (It was hilarious.)  I didn’t even mind terribly being at school for an extra two hours on a Friday evening talking to parents (and pretending to be way more extroverted than I actually am).  I was proud of my students, and proud of myself.

I didn’t please everyone.  One parent, angry at me from an encounter months ago, made it clear to me that she believed the work her daughter had done under my supervision was of poorer quality than the work she did at home.  It’s hard to be dismissed and belittled, but I hate to think that I’m getting used to it.  I spent most of my life as a non-people-pleaser.  (A non-pleaser of people, rather than a pleaser of non-people.)  I used to have a much thicker skin for criticism, and I’m encouraged to see myself able to brush off her incentive and ultimately self-serving comments without taking them to heart as a legitimate failing I need to address.  She can suck it.  I done did good.

Most Fridays I come home exhausted.  I stuff my face and fall asleep.  Yesterday was really no different, except there was a sense of accomplishment that I rarely feel.  I set my goals, I was willing to put in the work, and everyone came out with something that showed them in their best light.  But the cost was the energy on my part.  There was nothing left inside of me to care about sorting my laundry or cleaning up the dishes.  The thought of reading an improving book or taking a walk never even crossed my mind.  I was perfectly content and so I was perfectly happy to celebrate by going to sleep.

I had been thinking for the last two weeks about the person I could have been if I had made a different choice after high school and not gone to college.  I wondered about what if I were different; if I had been brave and gone exploring, looked for jobs and taken pictures of sunsets.  I found myself looking out the window on my bus ride to work thinking about who I would be if I’d never made it to the place where that was my bus route to work.  I thought a lot about those wants that we all have; the things we say we’d do if we had more time or more energy or more money or more something.  I thought about how we are surprised when someone reveals one of those wants to us.  When someone tells us what they would “really” do in some far of dream reality, it is usually something quite different than we expect to hear from them.

Such trains of thought used to make me very sad.  They were a way for me to mentally nurse my senses of hurt and deprivation.  I could conjure a whole life that had been denied to me, a happiness and freedom that should have been mine, if only I had known about it.  It doesn’t make me sad anymore.  I know now that in many ways the details of the fantasy are irrelevant, the desire is for accomplishment and wonder.  There is nothing glamorous about 3rd grade science projects.  No one complies beautiful photo blogs of animal kingdom reports decorated in construction paper habitats.  But for an evening (and still today) I understood the fulfillment of a job well done that I always assumed I would feel in the alternate realities I make in my mind.

(3 Years, 5 Months, and 24 Days Sober)