A few Wednesday thoughts...
Sometimes I forget I have five tattoos. I never strike myself as cool enough to have five tattoos. But I know that's how my students see me.
I'm older now than Conor was when he was murdered. That's really weird to think about.
The more angsty teenage tweets I read, the more I realize that I still complain more than is rational. Being a teenage girl and complaining about everything is one thing, being a 24 year old independent young woman and complaining is a completely different thing. Maybe I should work on that. Complaining is such a waste of potential energy. I know better than this.
I never realized how well I can relate and understand people younger than me until this year. It makes me think maybe I should have chosen a different career path? What if I could be the next Martin for some awesome kid or teenager that just needs to truly be listened to?
I hope that I honestly made a different in the lives and futures of some of the students who I've had this year who I can tell are really different and just get it... What if I didn't make them feel as special about being that way as I should have? What if I could have done more? I didn't want to ever come across as an authority figure, so I never told them how much I respected some of them... Instead, I tried to show it through how I treated them and spoke to them. I hope that was enough. I hope they can feel how much I adore them.
On the same note, so many of them have made me see myself in a whole different life than ever before. I no longer see what makes me so different as a negative, but as an incredible positive full of potential to help others and see things from a unique, creative perspective. I hope this epiphany sticks with me. I hope I don't go back to feeling like I'm so different that I'm not good enough for other people. My students have made me feel for the first time in my life that it's really just the opposite.
It's really hard to be this different. I don't think other people understand how lonely it can be. Many of the teachers treat me like I'm an alien and make fun of me in very slight ways. My roomies don't include me in anything and our only communication is them just backhandedly complain about me not washing my pans. And it's not like I want to be close to any of them - they're all so corrupted by the standard quo and it's repulsive in many respects to me - but I wish I didn't feel like a freak for not being like everybody else, and instead was celebrated for the bravery and confidence it takes to be this unique. It's not that they totally exclude me, it's that I want nothing to do with them... And that's a really uncomfortable feeling, too. Makes you wonder what's wrong with you.
Someday I'll figure that all out. Someday I will be surrounded by other different people who truly value that I'm not like the rest of the world. Someday. But until then, I'm so scared to have a whole summer without my students - the only ones who seems to get me and value me for being who I am.
I resent normal people. I resent that they can make me feel like there is something wrong with who I am because I'm not like them. They are the ones who should be ashamed. Not me. Not anymore.
I hope my students don't turn out to be normal people. I hope they stay like they are. I hope they don't let society mold them into another cookie cutter human being. But I'm sad knowing how hard it will be for them sometimes if they do succeed.
I don't want to let my students go, but I want a new life. I'm ready for a new chapter. I want to surround myself that people who see the uniqueness in me and respect it, not mock it.
XOXO
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