Dear Overly Emotional Teacher,
What is this week?
She (not to be mistaken for me) cries on the way to school because she hears Randy Travis belt out, “Three Wooden Crosses.” The line that says, “An’ that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children: Did her best to give ‘em all a better start” gets to her in a way she would never openly admit in a blog.
God knows she really is trying to give every last student a better start.
Very soon, she’ll say goodbye to a group of kids she has loved for as many days as it takes to carry a baby.
Speaking of babies, her own personal children are moving up a grade level, which is bittersweet as she realizes the notches on the measuring tape, growth chart are getting farther and farther from the floor.
Beyond the cheesy country song, there are other triggers for her fractured emotional state. It’s not all about being sad. There’s a little mad mixed in there too. Mad about still being in school, ticked about the jar of pickles she is certain was welded together with a cement, super glue combo, frustrated with the state of the world, and especially annoyed by the fact that McDonald’s only has one worker employed nationwide, which means it takes almost an hour to get a plain cheeseburger. Upon unwrapping the subpar delicacy, she realizes it is fully loaded with every condiment ever invented.
It's pure horseradish, I’m telling you.
Beyond sad and mad, there’s also bad. She isn’t doing any of the things she should be doing like eating right, reading right, sleeping right, exercising right, or heck even living right.
In the words of Randy Travis, she's somewhere between the preacher, the teacher, and the hooker, but who knows, maybe we all are.
Thank God for three wooden crosses that cover each of us when we are at our worst.
Tomorrow she may cry or cuss again, and when she does, hopefully, she'll remember another comforting line from the song that will help her make it to the end of the never-ending school year.
“An’ that preacher whispered, Can’t you see the Promised Land?”
-CDB