So Difficult

It's so fucking hard to go from having someone who finally gave your life meaning, to being alone again.  I'm too old by most conventions for a woman who has yet to marry.  But I wasn't willing to settle until I found someone who made me eternally happy.  Perhaps that was William... all I know is that what I feel for him is real, a love and yearning I have never felt before.

Before him my students weren't aware if I was dating or not.  I tried to keep my private life private.  They just wanted me to be happy.

"Ms. G.," quiet Alani said one day, "it would just be a shame if you didn't have a boyfriend.  You're too pretty to be alone."

They went so far as to cook up some relationship between myself and our new substitute, who is, to me, obviously gay.

"Ms. G. and Mr. Spellberg! OooOOooOOoo!"
"Cecilia, there's nothing going on between me and Mr. Spellberg!"
"Then why are you blushing?  You're as red as your hair!"

Then there was the picture of a shirtless Paul Rudd that was ripped out of a magazine and placed on my desk by an anonymous donor.  ...It may have been an expression of concern about my lack of a love life, it's unclear.

Our Classroom Mouse

Waiting in the hall for art,

"Where's Erick?"  Then it dawns on me.  I twirl around and spy his silhouette through the milky glass of the door.  Pointing, "There he is!"
"Who?" Cecilia asks.
"Erick!"
"Oh," as pushes the door roughly, pressing him between the door and wall.
"Cecilia!  Don't do that!  You could have hurt him!  Erick are you okay?"
He nods and shrugs at the same time.
"You sure?  Because I'm willing to bet you got hit with the door knob..."
Another shrug/nod.
"Okay..."

Later that afternoon,

"Ms. G., where's Erick?"
"Erick?  What do you mean, isn't he here?"
"Does he go to Title 1?"
"No."
"Is he in the bathroom?"
I check the sign-out sheet, "Nope."

Esteban says something in Spanish with a spooky tone.
"What did you say?"
"I said 'Maybe they got him!'"  He responds with yet another note on intrigue in his voice.
"There he is!"
Startled, I turn to see Erick standing behind me now.  "Where were you?"  But before he can respond, Emmanuel pipes up, "He was in the closet!"  (Something I had reprimanded Emmanuel for only minutes prior.)
"In the closet?!  You were in the closet?"
Shrug/nod/smile

"We couldn't find you, Erick!"
His smile grows larger and more sheepish.

Erick still likes hiding.

Erick Hides

Erick is new to our school this year.  For a long time I thought he was a cousin of one of my other 7th graders, Tony.  Because that's the way our school is, it's so small and a lot of students are related.  And, well, it being a Catholic school... there are a lot of cousins.  There's no relation, and the kids still give me grief about it.

He's quiet.  He can't spell for anything, and he used to noticably dislike math.  I can't put my finger on when, but all-of-a-sudden math just seemed to click for him.  He doesn't ace tests or anything, that's not what I mean.  It's his level of understanding. It goes deeper than most of my students can comprehend on the subject matter.  If he were more patient, he would be a star pupil in the subject.

Most of my kids I already knew before having them as 7th graders, but Erick not being among them, is someone I'm still learning about.  He has come out of his shell more as time progresses, but remains on the fringe of things.  Lately one of his eccentricities has become more prominent.  First it was holding a door open for others while passing in the halls and squishing himself behind the door so he could peer through the glass with his nose pressed against it as others walked by.  Then it was hiding behind things in the hallway with seemingly the intention of surprising others.  But now it's almost become a compulsion.

I'm not sure why, but Erick (a slight boy on the shorter end of the 7th grade height spectrum) hides behind doors at least once a day.  Today my students were getting water, and when I went out to speed them along, Erick nonchalantly emerged from behind the open classroom door and made his way back to his desk.  There was no "A-ha!" or "Boo!" or "Gotcha!"  There were no other students lingering nearby waiting to snicker.  No theatrical expression, just a boy simply ambling back into the room from his little hiding spot.

When lunchtime rolled around I dismissed the students per usual and they lined up in the hall, "Girls, round the corner and stop at the exit sign please.  Okay, boys follow the girls and stop at the exit sign please.  Would the last boy please get the door?"  The kids leave and I close one of the classroom doors.  As I was finishing saying, "Guys, didn't I ask for the last person to get the door?" Erick pushed out from behind not one, but two wooden doors (the one in question and one of the doors to the neighboring classes -- they overlap when fully opened), and then proceeded to shut the classroom door behind him.  Again, he didn't appear to be looking for a certain reaction or have a purpose to the action.  He was merely doing what he does, exploring a hobby.

Erick hides behind doors.

I *should* be grading...

...but I'm not.  ...It still feels like he's here.  Because I want SOOOOO badly for that to be true.

When William was sick in hospital, I thought for sure he would pull through.  In my heart, I believed it.  It seemed very likely, but there were so many factors out of anyone's control that conspired against him.  I swear, it seems like God was his foe.  First, there was the physical abnormality with his lungs that he'd had for years.  No one knew about it.  Chris, his brother, told me he had it too, but that their family thought it was only him, an anomaly.  Something about him growing tall so quickly.  But it wasn't.  Nobody expected rarely sick, fit and healthy William to have the same deformity.

Then, there was the lung infection.  There was his 14-hour trip to Australia which compounded things.  William's stubbornness to admit that he was suffering from more than a cold.  His desire to make a friend happy by going with the doctor s/he suggested, even though they were in a completely different city -- eight hours away!  He was in hospital in Sydney and he left!  He left!!  They knew it was bad, the doctors, but they couldn't force him to stay.  William was doped up on incredibly strong painkillers awaiting his stupid doctor's appointment in Melbourne, taking his life into his own hands.  I'm angry with him for doing that!  Sometimes I just want to punch things.  I'm mad at myself for not pressuring him to stay at the Sydney hospital.  I knew it was bad.  Surgery was not a possibility, I thought it sounded like a guarantee!  William refused to believe that.  He thought I was just being a worry wart.  I was... I am, but I was right!  ...But what help is that to me now?  That won't bring him back.

His last words to me, which will always make me cry, "Hi baby.  Ok.  Had tests and scan, had to get tubes stuck in to drain fluid and now am going to be prepped for surgery.  He does not want to wait another minute so off I go.  I'm ok though.  Please don't worry.  Know that I think of only you.  I love you, kitten."  A text I received on 11/12/2014 @ 1:30 a.m. my time.  I had tried to stay awake, and I'm angry that I let myself fall asleep.  I wish I had been awake during that text!  Then I could have said some sort of proper "I love you" back!!!

The worst thing was the mistake during surgery that somehow caused his sudden cardiac arrest.  Next there was his medically induced coma that was needed to keep him alive.  A second surgery.  And then he was coming to!  He was opening his eyes, moving his limbs, making sounds, and trying to talk!  It seemed like the horrible nightmare was coming to an end!!  Like finally, life could resume.  His time in the hospital placed my life on hold.  Because he was my future, we talked about living together, marriage, kids, and none of that could happen until he woke up.  ...But then... it stopped.  He stopped coming around and things got bad again.  They had to put him back on the ventilator, a "side-step" I was told.

Alas, it wasn't.  It was a step backwards.  He had gotten pneumonia.  He was sleeping fitfully I was told, and then, all-of-a-sudden his body got peaceful.  Mark, a family friend, got very worried.  He said the calm made him think morbid thoughts.  I tried to cheer him up.  I said that it must be the new set of antibiotics working and William's body no longer having to fight so hard.  Unfortunately... Mark was right.  They hadn't worked.  The anoxia had set in.  Things were so bad that various organs were dying as the oxygen level in his blood kept decreasing.  Mark had a breakdown.  I didn't know what was going on without Mark's frequent emails, and so I was a bundle of raw nerves.  Every day I anxiously awaited an email, an update, and there was nothing.  Until Saturday, January 10th, 2015 when Mark wrote to tell me that William passed away.

It was like a punch in the gut.  For two months I had tried to prepare myself for the possibility, but I wasn't ready for it.  He was just so... so... amazing.  A man who epitomized greatness in so many arenas.  He was fallible.  My love, my love fought as much as he could, but his body couldn't take it anymore in the end.  I'm sad.  I'm mad.  And I'm tired of being those things.

I look at his pictures.  I read his messages... and I'm happy again.  It feels like he's here still.  It's a vicious cycle.

Perfection Embodied

I can't concentrate right now.  Everything seems so insignificant.  ..And I've started to get very paranoid about the health of friends and family.  One of my sixth graders Alejandra has a cough, "Please get that looked at if you find yourself coughing for over a week Alejandra."  Or my friend Adam, "You've got a cold?  Please don't die!"  Then there was Kristin's visit to urgent care, "Oh my goodness!  Are you okay?!"

It's silly, I know... but William was so happy and healthy.  He was only 35.  For chrissakes he climbed mountains; he was fit!  My boyfriend was unbelievably attractive, body and soul... and he's gone.

Things spiraled so fast from our messaging on OkCupid.  The more we learned about one another, the more attractive the other became.  Placing family in high importance, honesty, intelligence, humor, HOTTNESS, romance... if I had a checklist, something I no longer believe one should have for dating, I would have crossed off every box.  He made me feel more special than any other man has.  Not to mention, he was humble!  So few men that I've met off of that website have had humility.  William was the cat's pajamas, and would blush at the mention of it.  God, it was sexy.

Ugh... I still want my boyfriend.  I want to make love to a dead man.  ...There are so many ways that's problematic.

William

He died this past Saturday, January 10th, William did.  And I wish you could have met him.  ...I wish *I* could have met him...

Illogical though it may seem, we fell in love without ever having been in the same room.  A sign of the times, in a way I suppose...  We met online as many couples now do.  My dating profile read like this blog here, which lead to his first message,

"Dear Ms. G,

Please consider writing a series of books of your daily school adventures. I'm already in love with a few of the characters.

Thank you, Will."

This is why I'm resuming this blog, as a means to cope.

Discombobulated Teacher

I have decided that I need to rename this blog.  It has been two years since I last wrote, and since then I've garnered a classroom of my own.

It has been a tough time since last we spoke.  Personally and professionally life has been a box of chocolates, "You never know what you're gonna get."  I worked at Chicago Lab. Schools after school program, I tutored, I subbed with C.P.S., I nannied, I provided math and reading Title 1 services, and now I teach middle school math with a 7th grade homeroom.  My head is spinning after just listing all of that, that and my allergies.  Not being religious, it's a little odd, but I find my current "home" at a Catholic school in probably the roughest area of Chicago.

The kids are all low, below-level across the board, and I'm slaving away, pursuing the best method for teaching them.  Romantic relationships seem like daydreams and hobbies like floating snowflakes.

Technically I have had two first years of teaching.  My first year at the school started in February, mid-school year.  This was in my Title 1 position.  Then, last year, I was asked, again mid-year, to step in for the middle school math teacher.  I love math, I love the kids, but boy-o-boy, I did not know what I was walking into!  (And, of course, the shit show debut coincided with the blow-up of my serious relationship of two years.)