Missing

Every morning, I wake up to Lucia's sloppy kisses. During the day, she snuggles up to me, asks for hugs, lifts, tickles, and kisses. Lots and lots of kisses. Every day, she learns something new. She widens her social circle (I swear, almost everyone in the building knows her already). She develops into this little princess hooligan who chooses what she wants to wear, what she wants to eat. In the middle of the night, she rises up from where she's sleeping and walks to the bed where I am. She climbs up and promptly falls back asleep, with her arms and legs wrapped around me. If she's awake enough, she'll sometimes kiss me before she drifts back to sleep.

These are the things that I remember in the midst of the haze that my medicines give me. I'm often sleepy-but-not-quite-sleeping, and I am left with my thoughts for most of the day. Sometimes I write, sometimes I draw. My husband does most of the errands, and the yaya does most of the heavy lifting, so mostly I'm either in bed and canoodling with Lucia. Such is the life of this full time mom.

But I'm also used to being a mom (Momma Bear) to a lot of people.

I miss my colleagues. The invigorating meetings, the planning, the de-stressing. How we all let loose at around 5 pm on a Friday. I miss how someone would knock on my cubicle and say, "Momma Bear..." then ask me something or confide something. I miss having my cubicle's floor used as a haven to unwind, to rant, to surreptitiously eat. I miss having KS sessions in our little, er, "alley." I miss how I'd wake up in the middle of the night because I thought of an activity to make a lesson un-boring. I miss teaching Poetry, mythology, and To Kill a Mockingbird; especially that pre-reading activity where I bring my kids to an open space and have them step forward to reflect on prejudices and perceptions. I miss challenging my students to think for and by themselves.

But most of all, I miss my kids. My recess one-on-ones. My older kids boisterously calling me from afar just to say hi. The silly jokes. The stupid messes. The music-playing-while-writing. The hugs. The writing lab journals. The compositions. The inside jokes. Making insane tests (hehehehe). I miss how alive I felt in the classroom, how every day, I knew I was doing what I was meant to do.

All I have are memories, romanticized memories, that conveniently forget about the stresses, the messes, the lapses, the missteps.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after this period of...treatment. I don't know if I'll be strong enough to teach again -- but at the same time, I don't know what else I could do that would give me as much happiness. Oh, I could always continue to write, I always will, but the personal interaction, the passion, the unbridled joy of being in the classroom the moment a student finally gets it...I seriously wonder if I will have that again.

I miss my kids, young and old (and yes, "old" could also mean the newbie teachers).

I miss the Me that I was when I had all that. I really, really, really do.

I'm not going to end with a quote or a sorry attempt at positivism. I just want to give a shout out to that loneliness I'm feeling right now.

That is all.