entry forty-five

 Thursday, May 22, 2025

    I feel like a depleted balloon—once full of energy, patience, and hope—now sagging, barely able to stay afloat. The misbehavior is relentless. It’s not just chatter or calling out. It’s chaos. Tables shoved, fists flying, students making inappropriate, unsettling noises. What on earth is happening?

    I’ve tried everything: bunny breaths, grounding techniques, visual cues. I ignore the minor disruptions and praise the positive. I let the little things go. But the little things are growing teeth. They don’t listen. I repeat directions. I redirect. I reteach expectations. Nothing sticks. I reward the positive. I try to think optimistically. My voice feels like background noise in a storm. My teapot is boiling—AHHH! I hate that I even get to this point. I did not come into this work to yell or cry in my car.

    Where is the break? Where is the support? These are not only bad days—they’re unsustainable ones. I look at my students and know they’re hurting too, but knowing that doesn’t lighten the load. It makes it heavier. How do you teach when the room feels like a battlefield? How do you breathe when the air’s been sucked out? I’m trying—but I’m fraying. And I don’t know how many more threads I have left. These aren’t just behavior issues; they’re cries for help wrapped in defiance and noise. But when every day feels like surviving the next explosion, empathy feels out of reach.

    I worry what this daily erosion is doing to me. What parts of myself am I losing? What parts have I already lost? I wonder what my students see when they look at me. Do they notice the wear in my voice, the slump in my shoulders? I’m supposed to be the steady one - the safe one. What am I modeling when I’m running on fumes? That survival is all there is?

    My heart breaks because I know they need love. They need consistency. They need someone to hold the storm without becoming it. But where’s the oxygen mask for me? Where is my chance to breathe, to be seen, to be held?

    I go home exhausted—ears ringing, soul heavy. My body still bracing for impact long after the day ends. I’m not giving up—but I’m breaking, quietly. Sometimes I feel like a ghost in my own classroom—present, but fading. A shadow of who I used to be. I walk in each morning with a sliver of hope, only to watch it unravel by 9:30am. That hope used to carry me. Now, it barely gets me through attendance.

    This isn’t just misbehavior—it’s a cry for help I don’t always know how to answer. And the weight of that not-knowing eats at me. What if I’m not enough? What if I never was? Still, I stay. I breathe. I try again because beneath the noise and beneath the anger and the chaos, I still believe in them. I still see the beauty buried in the struggle. I just wish someone believed in me that fiercely—enough to see past the exhaustion and recognize the quiet courage it takes to keep showing up. Every. Single. Day.

Unseen

I believe in my students with everything I have—
when they kick, when they scream, when they crumple in corners.
I see what others miss:
the tremble beneath their anger,
the hope buried under defiance.
And still, I stay. I show up. I love them hard.

I notice the soft, unspoken wins:
a student who doesn’t bolt,
another who asks for help instead of hiding.
I celebrate what no chart can measure.
Tiny flickers of light—I protect them like flame.

Who sees me that closely?
Who believes in me with that same fierce tenderness?
When my voice cracks under the weight of too many redirections,
when I sit alone at my desk long after the bell,
wondering if I’m unraveling,
who reaches out?

I keep showing up, yes.
But it’s getting harder to breathe.
The classroom steals my air—
and I’m pouring from an empty chest.
They say, “Put on your oxygen mask first,”
but mine’s been leaking for months.
And still, I run toward the fire.

I just wish someone believed in me
the way I believe in them—
enough to see past the wear in my eyes,
to notice the quiet courage
of returning to chaos with arms still open.

I don’t need applause.
I just want to be seen
before I disappear.