Category: Slice of Life

Today I opened up “photo booth” on my computer because my dog was right there with me. I tried to get a couple selfies. I didn’t quite get the angle right, but I will definitely try again. The beeping caught my dog’s attention and he is looking right at the computer in our pictures. This was a fun moment that made me smile today. I hope it makes you smile too!

I want to write about a topic that really is settling into my head lately, but I am finding it really difficult to put into words. I worry about coming across as not caring or just less in some way. There are so many thoughts swirling and I cannot seem to put them together into a coherent message. But I am going to try to at least start my thought process here.

First, I read an article about teachers and PTSD a couple years ago. I searched for it, thinking there would not be many hits and I would find it easily. I was wrong. No wonder the article resonated with me. It seems that the phrase “teachers and PTSD” is quite common. And there are a number of articles out there.

That is heartbreaking.

The reason I remember this particular article is because it resonated through me in a huge way. I was a couple years past my most difficult year of teaching and I felt like I had almost every symptom of what they were talking about. Leaving my school after that year was supposed to rejuvenate me, but I just stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I spent a couple years hating myself because as much as I really wanted to provide the same loving and nurturing environment in which I knew I was doing everything possible to help each student grow, I knew I was not doing my absolute best. I didn’t have it in me anymore. Some kind of spark that I had before had just gone out. (This was helped along by the way the principal at my new school chose to give feedback-I was completely demoralized)

The article talked about how teachers who are suffering from PTSD have a more difficult time forming relationships with their students. They still were friendly, but there was a layer of protection that a teacher in this state put up around their hearts. Yep. That was me.

Don’t get me wrong, I did still provide a really great classroom experience for my students. They saw an upbeat, friendly and caring teacher every day. I lesson planned and worked just as hard to provide the supports and educational opportunities for my students as I had before.

But, I just didn’t feel the same and my classroom did not feel the same.

It really started for me with that year full of supporting students who had deeper needs than what I could help with. I won’t go into all the details, but It was emotionally draining and I had little help. The solutions all seemed to come back to what else I could try. Ideas centered around what I was doing or not doing. The support systems in the school focused completely on the needs of the students, as they should. But somewhere in there, the system seemed to forget that I was a human being. There is only so much that a person can take. Being a teacher should not cause one to have a nervous breakdown. In that year, I shouldered the burden of the trauma of my students and almost lost my sanity. Is it any wonder that I struggled to find my footing again?

There have been a few people who have written more eloquently than I ever could about the need for teachers to stop being martyrs. I used to wear it as a badge of honor that I hardly ever took sick days. That I worked all hours of the week and my entire weekend. And I never stopped thinking about school. And that my identity was wrapped up in the fact that I was a teacher.

Now, I understand that I need to have boundaries and that this is a career not my entire life’s worth.

What I know is that we need to honor teachers right to be human beings who have lives. We need to stop running teachers into the ground. And the system needs to understand that teachers are emotional beings also. Yes, we are the adult, but that doesn’t mean we can just suppress all our emotions. Let’s not cause more teachers to suffer from PTSD because of work-related stress.

Here is an article about Secondary Traumatic Stress, which can cause PTSD symptoms. I think it must have been an article such as this one which I read.

One of the writing challenges I am participating in this month is a challenge in the Teach Write Facebook group to write “minute memoirs.” I am not doing this every day, because I am focusing on slicing, but I do love the chance to sit and think for just a quick minute about some memories.

Today, I wrote about going to used bookstores with my grandparents. They were both voracious readers and they loved it that I was too. We would spend time combing through the shelves and looking for our favorite treasures. My grandma was a big fan of mysteries and my grandpa loved history books and anything about the Civil War. I went through many different phases in what I looked for throughout the years, but I mostly remember looking for Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books.

This memory reminded me of another slice I wrote years ago (2013)! I resurrected it and revised it here:

When I Was Young

I drank cocoa on a dark and stormy night with Meg and Charles Wallace,
spent summer afternoons sluething with Nancy and Trixie,
and pestered Beezus with Ramona.

I fell off the rooftop and into the Cuthbert’s hearts with Anne,
created a business with Claudia, Mary Anne, Stacey, Kristy and Dawn,
and traveled the Orient Express with Poirot.

I cried until my eyes could cry no more with Scarlett,
played a game to win an inheritance with Turtle,
and tormented Peter with Fudge.

I explored the big woods and the prairie with Laura,
fell off the end of the sidewalk,
and shrank with Treehorn.

I hoped that god was there with Margaret,
grieved for Beth with Jo,
and hid in a small space with Anne Frank.

And I did it all without leaving the couch.

The other day, I wrote about the time I took my dogs out and ended up with a spiral fracture in my ring finger. You can catch up on that story HERE.

What I failed to mention in that story is that this episode happened a week and a half before we were leaving for Spain. My husband is from Spain and we had a three week trip planned to visit his family and some friends we have there. So, when I was told to call a hand surgeon and make an appointment for them to look at my broken finger, I did not call. I didn’t think I would get a quick enough appointment and I had a bunch of things to do to prepare for the trip.

In hindsight, this was a pretty poor decision.

Given the fact that my finger had a spiral fracture, I bet I would have been able to get in for a more immediate appointment and it should have been set with pins from the beginning.

Anyway, I went about life and kept the finger splint on my finger. I had no idea how long to leave it. My sister, who is a doctor, but not a hand surgeon, gave me an educated guess, but didn’t really know either.

I went to Spain and we traveled and I dealt with it. My finger was in that splint for the whole time. It was a little bit of an adventure to find medical tape in the Farmacia but we finally did. After our trip, I called to make an appointment with a hand surgeon. They did not have an appointment for another month. In hindsight, I should have asked over the phone about the finger splint, but I didn’t.

What I did start to notice was the fact that I didn’t seem to be able to bend my finger. I thought it seemed weird that it was still not healed.

It didn’t hurt anymore, but it also didn’t really work.

The day came to go to my appointment with the hand surgeon. He had his x-ray technician take the precise films that he needed to be able to diagnose the situation well. I will never forget his words.

“There are two problems here. First, your finger healed crooked. Second, it is stiff as hell because of that splint.”

He gave me options. I could go to hand therapy and work with my hand to get the mobility back in my finger or I could schedule surgery to correct the crookedness and then do hand therapy along with the healing. I wasn’t sure, but he convinced me that the surgery was going to be what I needed to do, and it was better to do it sooner than later.

So, I headed home and started working on moving my finger. I worked and worked to try to make it more mobile and be able to bend it better. What I discovered once I could fully bend it was that the surgeon was right. I needed this corrected as soon as possible. My finger was crazy. I had no grip to speak of.

I now had to decide when to do the surgery.

The first available times were smack dab in the middle of the first weeks of school. Any teacher knows that this is quite possibly the worst time in the school year to be absent. However, I knew that with my weird hand I would have a very difficult time getting through my regular tasks each day. Better to get the surgery and recovery over with and then have the majority of the school year with my kiddos.

So, I went to school for the first week. Then, I took medical leave, had my surgery, and was out of school for the next four weeks. I now have a plate in my hand. Because the finger was so stiff, it was difficult for the surgeon to see when he had it lined up correctly. So, my finger is not exactly straight. But it is much better than how it used to be.

• 

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The moral of the story: Call the hand surgeon when you break your finger, even if you think it is no big deal. Your fingers are actually more important that you might imagine.

Tonight (or rather, this afternoon) we went out to have a beer. It is not something we do very often lately. We only ever go to places that are well ventilated and not very crowded. And never for longer than an hour. I can count on one hand the number of times we have done this since last Spring. After both of us getting the first dose of the vaccine this week, we just really felt like going somewhere tonight.

So, we went to one of the two places we venture out to during this weird time–where precautions are well done and followed and the building is well ventilated. And we ran into some friends there. It was so serendipitous! It felt so nice to visit with another couple—it has been SOOO long!

Remember just over a year ago when we didn’t think twice about going out and meeting people? And hugging them? And talking to them without masks on?

A lot can happen in a year.

It started with a dog whining. It was supposed to be a quick trip out the door for a quick pee and then right back inside.

Carmela, Kiko, and I headed down the four flights of stairs. On the way down, I worked at getting the leashes set in my hands, but I was not holding the leashes well when we reached the door.

This was the door to a back staircase, so there was no window in the door. It usually wasn’t an issue. Without thinking twice about it, I pushed the door open.

It happened in an instant.

The other dog started barking. Kiko yanked on his leash and went running toward the woman and her dog. The leash went flying out of my grasp with a sickening snap, and the pain started immediately. I knew instantly that my finger had broken.

Then, cradling my left hand to my chest, and wrestling with Carmela’s leash in my right hand, I set off to rescue the neighbor from the pursuit of Kiko. Luckily, Kiko has a loud bark but is not interested in actually attacking. He chased the woman and her dog, and I think maybe even caught up to them, but he did not attack. Through whatever maneuvers she did, somehow, Kiko’s leash got stuck under a tire.

Now, I assessed the situation. I took Carmela over to where Kiko was. Mind you, her whole mission this whole time was to go say hi to the neighbor, When she pulls the leash, there is FORCE there. So, I was struggling quite a bit.

We got over to Kiko and I started trying to get his leash unstuck with only one functioning hand. I was using the same hand that was gripping Carmela’s leash, which was pulled taut with her efforts to go say hi. So, next thing I know, I dropped Carmela’s leash and she went charging to the neighbor and her dog.

At this point, I was trying to breathe, almost hyperventilating, in my efforts to fend off the pain, corral my dogs, and somehow get back upstairs to my apartment.

I had not brought my phone with me for this outing.

Looking around, I saw that my neighbor, bless her soul, had Carmela calmly sitting alongside her dog and was standing there and patiently waiting. With some effort, the leash came out from under the tire and we were able to go over and collect Carmela without further excitement.

Now that I had both dog leashes in my good hand, I went to the front door of the building. I called my husband from the call box, but he did not recognize that it was the front door. So, we went in, up in the elevator, and back to the apartment.

I yanked off my ring before my finger got too big. Then my husband drove me to the ER. Sure enough, it was a spiral fracture. It took another year of healing and a surgery to correct my hand…and the finger is still slightly crooked. But that is another story for another day.

I was floored by the kindness of that woman that day. She must have seen from the first instant that I was hurt. She had every right in that instance to be angry and screaming at me. Instead, she apologized and helped me. It was exactly what I needed in that situation. I already was berating myself and embarrassed enough. I was in pain and struggling to gain control of a situation that was out of my control. She empathized and helped. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.

Last week, the list of job openings was released for our school district. It is a very cumbersome process in which teachers can apply during two different interview cycles and the transfers are dealt with through HR.

This is the first year in the last several years that I have not even peeked at the list and it feels really good.

It had been years since I had felt happy in my job.

Last Spring, I was so lucky to come across this coaching position that is just the right fit for me. I love working at the school that I am at this year and I am so fortunate to be a part of the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools initiative and the amazing things that the program is bringing to our district and my school.

It feels so amazing to not have to be applying, interviewing, waiting and anxious again this year. For this I am very grateful.

Runners are a little bit crazy. Yes, I said it. All you have to do is scroll through the posts in any of the Facebook groups I belong to. We are obsessed.

I didn’t used to identify myself as a runner. Some days my body definitely does not define itself as a body that runs, yet I find myself falling into this crazy category. I love running.

Holy cow. My thirteen-year-old self would have rolled her eyes and laughed like crazy at that statement. I used to HATE exercise in any form. I was pretty much terrified of playing sports and getting hurt.

It didn’t help that my mother was crazy anxious about my health because of my father’s heart disease. I was forced to use his exercise bike and work out (I HATED THAT MACHINE.) The physical fitness tests in gym were torture (except for the stretching ones, I was super flexible), because I could not run a mile. I could not breathe when I ran. My gym teacher told my mom I was badly out of shape. My mom believed him and I ended up having even more forced exercise to do so I could get in shape. I was not out of shape. As an adult, I figured out that I had exercise-induced asthma.

I don’t exactly know why, but when I got an inhaler, I learned to control my breathing and I went to work. Couch to 5k was my first companion and then a training plan for a 10K run. I worked up to running an hour straight and then more than an hour. It was never very fast, but it was running.

In the work, I discovered a euphoria I never had experienced before. Running made me feel powerful. I was able to control my body and regulate my breathing and conquer my goals. It was amazing.

Then, I hurt my knee. I had to stop running. There was talk of surgery, but I didn’t want to do that. So, I resigned myself to not running. I could find plenty of other ways to exercise.

Fast forward ten years or so. I never found anything that came close to giving me the same thrill and sense of power. So, I started slowly and worked up to running again using the run-walk-run method.

For about a year now, I have been steadily working on it. I am in a bunch of running groups on Facebook and it is such a community. So many people are out there that really understand the compulsion and the runner’s high. I also love the Peloton app for run coaching. It has been so motivating.

I will never be an elite runner. I will probably never be very fast. There might also be long pauses in my running journey or even the need to stop again (that pesky knee sometimes rears its ugly head). However, I can firmly and proudly say that I am a crazy runner. And I hope I will be one for a long time to come.

Dear Andrea in March 2020,

Right about now you are starting to feel pretty nervous about that weird virus that is happening in China and that you are starting to hear about in other places in the world. Because of VIPKid, you have heard more than most Americans about the virus there and the precautions the Chinese people have been taking. You are checking a dashboard with the numbers in the few spots where there have now been outbreaks starting and the exponential growth in numbers of cases is starting to freak you out a little bit. Just wait, it gets worse.

In a couple weeks, you will be hearing about crises in New York and Italy. You will be worried about Ramón’s family in Spain. You will start to worry about going to school and about the field trip you have planned to do the model UN fair with other students from around the school district. You will start to understand that sooner or later they will probably be closing the schools and having people stay home, like they did in other places of the world.

Then one Friday, you will go home planning to come back to school the next week, and find out an hour later that the governor has closed schools across the state. You will not be able to go into your classroom to grab anything for a few weeks. You will not know what you are supposed to do. The state will then issue a safer at home order which basically closes everything. It will be so weird. You will do your best to communicate with your students and provide some enrichment and learning opportunities in the best way you can. You will direct the students and families to the free lunches and the packets of work being given out for students to have something to do at home.

Your trip to Spain will be canceled. All the festivals and races and games and concerts and big events will be canceled too. Summer fun will consist of enjoying your balcony, taking long walks with the dogs away from other people, and learning to entertain yourself at home. Don’t worry though, although the virus does continue to spread and the death tolls rise, it doesn’t morph into some zombie producing virus. I know it’s weird but I know that you are kind of thinking it, so I thought I would put your mind at ease.

On the bright side, you will excel at interviewing online. It is probably because of your years teaching online, or maybe just because you have less social anxiety over the computer, but you will have great success in the interviews this Spring, with multiple job offers to choose from. Congratulations! Do not hesitate to grab the VILS coach position. It is just the right fit for you and you will LOVE working at Audubon and connecting with the network of Verizon Innovative Learning Schools.

Training for this new job will actually start this Spring for you. You will get lots of chances to meet your new principal and work closely with him to help envision how the grant program will be implemented at your new school. Over the summer, you will continue to have trainings throughout the week and work to think about. I think this is part of what will help you to feel productive and not too bored.

Fall and winter will see you working from home supporting teachers who are teaching virtually. In March 2021, we still don’t know if we will be returning to the school buildings at all this school year. It feels like science fiction and it is a lot of work, but we are getting through it.

You know how you always joke that you could be a hermit and be completely happy? Well, you will sort of get a chance to prove that theory this year. And, yep, staying home all the time and away from other people does agree with you. Not having to force yourself to go to a social event has been very liberating this year.

Yet, you know that things need to eventually get back to some of what used to be. We will have to go back to the school building. We will want to travel to Spain to see Ramon’s family. People will want to have concerts and festivals and dine in restaurants again.

Enter the vaccine. Andrea, I know you will feel a little nervous about taking the vaccine, but do it anyway. Listen to your sister and all the other doctors out there that are reading the medical journals and trusting the science.

It is March 1st, and the first day in the state of Wisconsin that teachers can get vaccinated. We went to do it today. Ramón and I both got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. So far, so good.

So Andrea, you are taking the steps to helping end this pandemic. Let’s hope that by next March the narrative changes for the better and we can stop living this science fiction reality.

With love from Andrea

There is something in my life that isn’t serving me anymore and I know logically that it is time to give it up, but I struggle. I am still clinging to the promise of what could be. Even after a few years of working on personal growth and knowing what needs to be done to be successful with this venture, I just haven’t succeeded and I am sick of feeling bad about that.

This particular venture calls for networking. I have social anxiety. This is not a good mix. It also means having deep belief in a line of products that I do love and think everyone should have, but I do think people can do without them too.

My husband has seen it for a while now. He gently nudged and told me that he didn’t see me having fun with it. In fact, he often sees me beating myself up about it.

Why is that?

I know I am not the only person in the world to be harder on herself than others would be. Why do I insist on continuing to do something that grates on my soul? It only gives me the “pleasure” of feeling bad for not accomplishing goals and guilty for not doing that which I know I SHOULD be doing, but don’t really want to do.

It also has to do with failure. I am thoroughly educated about growth mindset and I know that failure leads to learning, but I still wanted to be one of those success stories. I am not sure I ever wanted it enough. Or is that really it? I don’t know. Yet, I know it is time to stop beating myself up and investing money in something that I know just isn’t going anywhere because I just don’t really want to do the work.

It’s time to get real

I am declaring to myself right here and now that I am done with this. Time to join the ranks of many other people who have decided that this is just not the right thing for them. No guilt. No more beating myself up. I am saying yes to letting this go and giving myself more space for new adventures.