Ríe y Llora

I saw the little recorder killer in CVS.  I always liked that kid.  He was playing intently with his mother in the toy aisle.  A few months ago, I would have stopped and said hello.  I didn't this time, just went straight to the pharmacy and paid $85.00 for a prescription that cost $15.00 when I had health insurance and made more than twice as much as I am making now.

"Pretty good, Ms. Hilary, pretty good" the administrator commented after my first evaluation.  I was glad.  I am teaching in a way that I have never taught before, using a strict methodology that I am not used to.  I am not doing any of my normal things.  I should be bothered, but I'm not.  I should be screaming that I am a professional and I KNOW how to teach!  But I don't.  What they say goes.  It oddly doesn't matter to me.

It's hot.  All I do is sweat.  It makes me lazy.  It makes me not want to go outside.  I randomly weed the garden I worked so hard on as I take Lola out for a walk before my part-time job.  It is an accomplishment if I walk the whole two miles around the park.  Not run, walk.  

I worry about Lola.  My job could easily keep me in the building forty hours a week, but I am not willing.  Not for part-time pay.  And, I have my dog to worry about.  I stagger her days between her crate and doggy day care for the long days.  I even bring work home, something I stopped doing years ago, in favor of doing it at school and leaving it there.  I say openly to me colleagues, "I have to go.  I have to pick up my dog".  I say it in the same way they talk about their children.

We have one hundred, sixty-eight instructional days left in the school year.  I have to admit, the school has done nothing wrong.  It's me.  I have never started counting the days this early in the year before.

I see my old kids everywhere.  They rarely see me anymore, not the way they used to.  A few do, but most don't.  They have forgotten.