I think that most everyone has bad dreams about school, even long after we are done attending classes. My dreams often include an embarrassing state of undress, a corridor full of people and the inability to find a classroom or locker or paper to hand in.
Or realizing that I have an exam in a class I forgot to attend all year.
Or looking at homework that should be easy to do, but requires skills I have suddenly forgotten.
In my waking life I have a graduate degree, but in my sleeping life I might have forgotten to finish a class in high school which, if not rectified, could result in my losing all my degrees. There always seems to be one more classes to return to, one more paper to write, one more test to take. I understand that these kinds of dreams are the sub-conscious mind's way of processing unfinished business, but I sometimes wonder if I will ever finish processing the student life.
Then last night I dreamt that I was on my way to give a final exam for a class (finally I was the teacher) but I couldn't remember teaching them anything. It was a short-course (only 5 weeks or so) in a culinary class. I was fully dressed, but much like waking life I was carrying around mounds of papers. I couldn't remember teaching food or knife safety, recipes, or anything for the class. Keep in mind that I am generally a writing teacher, so I must have accepted the job to teach the course as a favor at the last minute. In a futile attempt to decide what I was going to test the students on, I visited them in a study group and invited their input which I wrote on a white board. None of them were asking questions about the subject matter of the class; they were asking questions about sentence structure and finding my errors as we went!
Then I visited a jail and spoke with some fascinating people, including a Native American who had wonderful stories to share–none of them were about the culinary arts. I was on my way to the classroom determined to ask the students to write short essays describing what they had learned in class when I woke up.
Apparently I have graduated (pun intended) from nightmares about being a student to nightmares about being a teacher. Lovely. The lesson here could very well be that no matter whether I am a teacher or a student the paperwork feels endless, the tension is ongoing and the deadlines don't stop.
Wonderful.
Lake Mendocino
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Empty Nest??
Technically I am almost an empty nester.
My daughter graduated from high school. She is my youngest, so that means many things. It means no more permission slips or phone calls to the attendance office when she is sick (or simply not in the mood to go to school). It means no more baking cookies or brownies to sell at drama or choir productions. It means no more coordinating parent volunteers (although to be honest I gave that up almost two years ago). It means no more phone calls for permission to give her Tylenol if she doesn’t feel well (even though she was already 18 and technically could make that decision on her own) or say yes, she can drive herself home even if she feels like throwing up.
My worth as a human being, and gauge of my identity as a mother, no longer relies on how often I take tickets or count money or drive a carload of kids to Marine World. My social life won’t rely solely on chats on the playground or hanging out in front of the school waiting for the bell to ring. My identity will always be wrapped up in my role as Vince or Melia’s mom. I’m okay with that, much I am is Joe’s wife. I am fortunate in that my kids and their friends think that I am a cool mom. I still get to be cool. That, thankfully, doesn’t change just because the kids are done with compulsory education.
The last several transitions have carried with them a heavy sense of loss. Even though death means gifts, and I do believe that even when we lose people we love they leave behind many gifts that stick around for a long time, any transition is a loss. But I’m okay with losing the burden of permission. Constant permission. I will no longer have frustrating conversations with school counselors or administrators. I no longer have to justify my reasons why I don’t want my daughter to take part in standardized testing that raises her anxiety to unsafe levels and labels her a student in need of remediation even though she maintains a B+ average. I no longer have to fight to remove my kids from the classroom of a tyrant who claims that communication is imperative, yet gives out an erroneous email address at Back-to-School night.
I can happily live the rest of my life without another automated phone call from the high school reminding us about an upcoming event that holds no interest at all whatsoever. I don’t care that the wrestling team is having a spaghetti feed, or that the athletic boosters is recruiting new members. The guilt of not attending PTA meetings or joining the music boosters is gone. I am not required by conscience to attend another Open House to ooh and aaah over construction paper art projects. Back-to-School nights and the 10 minutes the teacher has to explain a full year of curriculum at top speed are over.
There are no more team meetings to attend where we and administrators all pretend to be on the same side, the side of my child, when I know full well they are only there because the law requires that they respond to my concerns.
I won’t miss the girl whose solos make my ears bleed, or the boy who flipped me off when I broke up a fight between him and my son. I won’t miss the snooty parents who act like I don’t exist when I quit the parent group they belong to and am no longer a benefit as a friend. And I certainly won’t miss the tension that comes from misplaced permission slips, information packets, blank forms and (what seems like) arbitrary deadlines.
For now I won’t miss my kids. Well, not much because one still lives at home and the other is less than 2 miles away. The genuine friends that I made while the kids were in school will remain my friends. The skills that I amassed in all the years of volunteering serve me well. I get to walk away, leaving the worst behind and the best in my back pocket.
The phrase empty nest implies a simpler life, a sadder, more lonely life. With children gone, a parent's life has lost its center. The universe shifts, its contents moved onto another, larger, more independent space. In cliche land I could simply be waiting for grandchildren and retirement. Not this mom!
I waited a long time to go back to work and focus on my intellectual stimulation, my ambitions and my future. I still have a long way to go in order to reach my career goals. And I am really jazzed about the new possibilities it brings with it. I'm just getting started and it feels great!
There is room, now, to fill my nest with new interests, new people. A whole new life.
In reality my nest and my life are far from empty, in fact I may need more closet space soon.
My daughter graduated from high school. She is my youngest, so that means many things. It means no more permission slips or phone calls to the attendance office when she is sick (or simply not in the mood to go to school). It means no more baking cookies or brownies to sell at drama or choir productions. It means no more coordinating parent volunteers (although to be honest I gave that up almost two years ago). It means no more phone calls for permission to give her Tylenol if she doesn’t feel well (even though she was already 18 and technically could make that decision on her own) or say yes, she can drive herself home even if she feels like throwing up.
My worth as a human being, and gauge of my identity as a mother, no longer relies on how often I take tickets or count money or drive a carload of kids to Marine World. My social life won’t rely solely on chats on the playground or hanging out in front of the school waiting for the bell to ring. My identity will always be wrapped up in my role as Vince or Melia’s mom. I’m okay with that, much I am is Joe’s wife. I am fortunate in that my kids and their friends think that I am a cool mom. I still get to be cool. That, thankfully, doesn’t change just because the kids are done with compulsory education.
The last several transitions have carried with them a heavy sense of loss. Even though death means gifts, and I do believe that even when we lose people we love they leave behind many gifts that stick around for a long time, any transition is a loss. But I’m okay with losing the burden of permission. Constant permission. I will no longer have frustrating conversations with school counselors or administrators. I no longer have to justify my reasons why I don’t want my daughter to take part in standardized testing that raises her anxiety to unsafe levels and labels her a student in need of remediation even though she maintains a B+ average. I no longer have to fight to remove my kids from the classroom of a tyrant who claims that communication is imperative, yet gives out an erroneous email address at Back-to-School night.
I can happily live the rest of my life without another automated phone call from the high school reminding us about an upcoming event that holds no interest at all whatsoever. I don’t care that the wrestling team is having a spaghetti feed, or that the athletic boosters is recruiting new members. The guilt of not attending PTA meetings or joining the music boosters is gone. I am not required by conscience to attend another Open House to ooh and aaah over construction paper art projects. Back-to-School nights and the 10 minutes the teacher has to explain a full year of curriculum at top speed are over.
There are no more team meetings to attend where we and administrators all pretend to be on the same side, the side of my child, when I know full well they are only there because the law requires that they respond to my concerns.
I won’t miss the girl whose solos make my ears bleed, or the boy who flipped me off when I broke up a fight between him and my son. I won’t miss the snooty parents who act like I don’t exist when I quit the parent group they belong to and am no longer a benefit as a friend. And I certainly won’t miss the tension that comes from misplaced permission slips, information packets, blank forms and (what seems like) arbitrary deadlines.
For now I won’t miss my kids. Well, not much because one still lives at home and the other is less than 2 miles away. The genuine friends that I made while the kids were in school will remain my friends. The skills that I amassed in all the years of volunteering serve me well. I get to walk away, leaving the worst behind and the best in my back pocket.
The phrase empty nest implies a simpler life, a sadder, more lonely life. With children gone, a parent's life has lost its center. The universe shifts, its contents moved onto another, larger, more independent space. In cliche land I could simply be waiting for grandchildren and retirement. Not this mom!
I waited a long time to go back to work and focus on my intellectual stimulation, my ambitions and my future. I still have a long way to go in order to reach my career goals. And I am really jazzed about the new possibilities it brings with it. I'm just getting started and it feels great!
There is room, now, to fill my nest with new interests, new people. A whole new life.
In reality my nest and my life are far from empty, in fact I may need more closet space soon.
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