Calm in my Perfect Storm

So many times when I tell people what I do for a living I hear back, "How do you do it?  I could never last a day.”  Usually when I hear that I think how lucky I am because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.  I’ve had other jobs in my life but none that can even come close to offering the satisfaction I get from teaching reading and writing to 75+ sixth graders everyday.  Yes, I’m exhausted when I get home, and there are very few nights I go home empty handed.  More likely I’m loaded down with not one, but two tote bags filled with papers to read, feedback to be give and lessons to plan. I do as much as I can after dinner, fall asleep late, and then get up at the crack of dawn (or earlier) to start again.  By now you might be thinking, is she crazy?  Why would anyone one continue to do this day after day?  (And I haven’t even gotten into the nitty gritty details of my job.)  I guess it’s just something you have to experience for yourself.  Once that bell rings at 8:20 in the morning, my homeroom students arrive at their lockers, call out greetings to their friends and come into the classroom.  I enter autopilot, top speed.  It’s show time.  I have my game plan ready for the day.  I call it a game plan because it’s flexible.  I’m prepared for the expected and the unexpected.  But what’s truly amazing is that I am able to keep going at this speed until 3:30 pm, when the last student heads out the door at the end of the day.  During the day I am almost constantly in motion, whether I’m delivering a lesson, conferring, on lunchroom duty, facilitating writing club, some part of me is always moving, especially my mind.  Even after the kids go home, I usually don’t slow down until it’s finally time for me to call it a day and head home, again with tote bags in tow.

Today there was a calm in my “perfect storm”.  While in the library, moving between helping students look for books, advising two groups on their text structure posters, and trying to keep the noise level to a low hum, I look up and see my son in the midst of all of this. It took a minute for my mind to register what I was seeing it was so unexpected.  And then I noticed what he had in his hands, Starbucks!  He had come in the middle of the morning to bring me a hot Chai Latte!  For the first time in I don’t know how long, my autopilot stopped in the middle of the day.  I was stunned.  Even the students stopped for a moment (yes, that’s very unusual).  Then I hugged my son, the students went into overdrive asking me questions, then asking my son questions, and soon it was back to the happy continuous buzz of daily life at school.  My days are nonstop and hectic on a regular basis but I can’t imagine it any other way.  If anything the pace has truly helped me to appreciate the simpler things in life like family and a hot Chai Latte in the middle of the day.