What do you do when you are so frustrated you literally want to scream or lay down and throw a good-old-fashioned-five-year-old-life-is-not-fair tantrum? Especially when you have to be the role model? The one who takes the high ground? What do you do when you put your heart into your job and your audience does. not. care.?
I had a student try my patience this morning. I will not go into details but suffice it to say that I was not the person I want to be. I managed not to raise my voice ~ let’s face it though, my voice is loud even in its “normal” volume ~ there was a very clear edge. However, the number of curse words that were running through my head has me praying for forgiveness and a whole lotta patience even an hour later.
This is not an isolated event. Unfortunately, I find myself encountering situations like this regularly, almost daily. And unfortunately, I find my ability to move forward lessening by each experience. I have good kids. I have great kids. And I think what makes me the angriest is the fact that I allow students who do not care about education and who have so little respect for me and what I do taint the entire day. I allow myself to be blinded to the kids who do care; and, once I get angry at myself, it escalates and turns into an exhausting cycle of the equivalent of running at full sprint toward the 60-year-old bricks that compose my house.
Then there’s the irony with which most of my female friends might be able to empathize: as soon as one thing gets you that frustrated, everything you do sucks and nothing is good enough. My house? It will never be clean. My dog? I need to do more training with her. My family? I need to be better about calling. Bible study? I need to spend more time with that. My friends? I need to write a card for someone who’s struggling with a broken heart or a hangnail. My diet? yeah, well, let’s leave that can of worms closed up tight and on the highest shelf there is.
One would think this frustration could lead to productivity, but I do not know how to process my frustration. I find myself wanting to cry. I find myself wanting to imbibe adult beverages into oblivion. I find myself wanting to curl up on the couch and watch reruns of Law and Order I know so well I could tell you who was guilty after the first 30 seconds. I find myself wanting to surf Pinterest for hours to plan my next meal, house project, or otherwise become the proverbial ostrich burying her head in the sand.
As I sit and type this, the sky is a glorious blue, there is a breeze blowing through my classroom, and several of those great kids I mentioned earlier are sitting here, quietly working, during my lunch. I am trying desperately to think of some positive, or at least witty, way to sum up what I’ve been ranting about.... nope... I got nothing. There are days like that, I suppose. Days when it just isn’t neat and tidy but messy and tumultuous, a roiling of emotions. I think my goal for the day is to let these words be the vent to the searing steam of my frustration. Oh wait... shouldn’t I use that steam for some healthy vegetables for dinner?
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