When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a singer. After hearing a recording of myself, I realized that was never going to happen. It didn’t feel like a huge loss, though, because I had felt the stirrings of another dream.
I needed to be a teacher.
I vividly remember needing help with homework one night, sometime around third grade. I knew my answer was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I asked my father for help, but had to teach him how to do it. In doing so, I realized my own mistake.
For as long as I can remember, I have been helping kids – with homework, real-life problems, anything I could. Younger, older, even adults. I wasn’t allowed out of the house, but I would sneak out anyway to help the neighborhood kids. I wanted that to be my life. I know that my teachers changed my life, I wanted to be that for others. I wanted kids to know they had someone they could trust. I always had a give for teaching others, usually by showing them a different way to look at the problem. I wanted to use that gift to do good. I knew I could do it.
I was on track for this when my health worsened. I started passing out during my studies. I became absent-minded. I was often in too much pain to concentrate, let alone actually sit in a chair for any length of time. School wasn’t possible anymore.
And even if I had my degree already, how could I be a teacher? I imagine standing in front of a class when my legs give out. Or handing out tests and my arms stop working. Or passing out during a presentation. Or feeling that pins-and-needles burning skin sensation while doing, well, anything. How could I be of any use to students?
So that dream is gone. It hurts. Every day, it hurts. It hurts more when I see kids struggling. When I see adults who never had that teacher who helped shape them. When I hear people talk about how “teachers don’t care anymore.”
I wanted to be there.
But here I am. I’ve been in bed all day, because of heat sickness. I’m writing in a blog that no one reads. I don’t even want people to read it, I just want to pretend I do, because I want them to care, I want my words put out there, but I don’t want anyone to see what is happening here. I don’t want them to see my pain. There’s enough pain in the world, I don’t need to expose anyone to mine.
And I don’t want them to see how much of a failure I really am.
I had so much potential, and the passion to make it work.
Now I am left with only the passion, and all it does is hurt.
…
I just want to find a way to put it all to use again.
Yelling to Myself 