rough stuff

i could feel my eyes welling with tears on the way to work today. i took deep breaths at every stop light, telling myself it was going to be ok, i can do this. we can get through this.

it has been a rough week. i've tried to stay positive and not let my emotions follow me home, tried not to let what feels like depression fall over to the blog. but then, on my very long run in the cold today i realized- it's my blog, so i need to stop protecting readers from my darker thoughts. you are smart enough to make your own choices in what to read, right? don't feel like depression- come back tomorrow.

this week has been a very long reminder of just how powerless we really are in the lives of our kids. we've got a couple kindergartners whose lives are upside down. i can't imagine being five and seeing the world through their eyes. i can't begin to understand what they believe are the unquestionable truths about the world. one has suppressed everything that has gone wrong in his life into a batman movie- but also believes that all the bad men in his life are stronger than even batman. because while the evil men are always evil, batman can be convinced to be bad sometimes too. nobody in this boy's view of the world is fully good. we can all be pulled away from him to be evil at any time, so who can he trust, really?

another child so full of anger that we're at a loss at how to begin to teach him his alphabet. and very well-meaning people this week told us we were doing the best we can and they didn't really see what else we could do. we felt even more helpless than we did before. yes, we're just teachers. we've just been asked to teach the children when they need to move on to the next grade. but that's the hardest thing to be reminded when you see a child screaming for help every minute of the day. it's like watching someone drowing and not being able to throw them a lifeboat. we are dying to help this child but we're out of ideas. so now we're suppose to sit back and watch him struggle to stay above water?

yesterday we found out a pretty horrible situation with another child in another class. i think this situation put me over the edge. i came home and slept for hours only to be woken up by my husband coming home. i was barely able to carry on a conversation the rest of the evening. all day i haven't had much to say- can barely engage people in conversation. people ask me how i am and i've forgotten how to answer.

i realized on my run i was mad at myself for caring so much. i was trying to put up a fence- keep school problems at school and protect my happy life at home. i'm jealous of people that can do that, but i think i need to accept the fact that i can't. sometimes i need to cry- i need to kick things and get angry at the world.

i need to let myself be pissed at parents who hit their kids, be furious at the lack of police enforcement in the nearby city, outraged by the lack of available resources to our kids. i need to just generally hate the evil people in this world who hurt my children. (not the parents who hit from misguided anger- the truly evil people who infringe on our kids' rights).

how dare you hurt one of my kids? do you know what lovely children they are? do you know how much they trust you- you being an adult, and them just being a child? they shouldn't- you don't deserve it, but they do. they even try their hardest to please you because they don't get enough attention elsewhere in their lives. their lives are hard enough without you. yet while they should feel safe inside their own worlds you've shaken that out of them. and that will never go away. no well meaning teacher, no amount of hugs, no amount of counseling will ever change what you've done. nothing will ever make that innocent smile return to how it was before you. you can't even imaginie how much i hate you- how angry i am.

i'm not sure i know how to begin to get past this week. the walls of these children's lives are closing in. sometimes i do have thick skin, i can shutter at the stories i hear and keep going. this week their little lives have seeped into every moment of my day and ring in my ears when i'm trying to move on.

i'm going to go take a long bath and then watch law and order svu so i can believe in the police out there catching the people i hate.