Saturday, January 8, 2011

I'm here, I swear

So, hobbling along with my hip flexor aching. I've found that driving makes it hurt the most. And I had to spend a lot of time in my car for an honor band in a town about 45 minutes away. Ouch.

It was a crazy week. It all started with that iPhone alarm issue. Starting out a Monday like that just doesn't bode well for the rest of the week. As we were coming back from the honor band on Monday, my gas light came on and I discovered I had left my wallet at home. The kids didn't have any money and since gas is nearly $3 a gallon, I didn't have enough change to do any good. Pointless to pump half a gallon of gas. I made it home, barely.

The next morning, the kids left from their home and I left from mine in plenty of time for us to get to the honor band early so they could get warmed up. Wrong. There was a huge pileup that they got caught behind. I lead-footed us all the way there, but figured someone's late every year, and this year it just happened to be me.

That night, I totally screwed one of the kids over by getting my information wrong (the whole honor band was a clusterfuck of mis-communication, in my defense) and we didn't get back in time for the concert, so my freshman missed his performance. Once I figured out what happened, I made my way through the bowels of the performance hall to get behind the area where the performance was going on (so...many...stairs....hip...aching...) and I found him, with the most deflated, blank, devastated look on his face. It crushed me. My heart ripped in two. This is one of my very best kids...he practices, he's a great musician and only a freshman, he's bright, he's responsible...and I fucked him over. I couldn't help it...the tears started (freaking PMS didn't help there). I went and sat with another band director who tried to make me feel better but you know that never works. He was kind enough to post on my facebook the next morning that he hoped I was feeling better and that everything was okay. After the performances were over, I went out front to get some air and be in a dark area so people couldn't see my tear-stained face, and alternated between tearing up again and wanting to vomit. It came very close to that. There was nothing I could do to make it right. Nothing.

But, the kid wasn't mad. The parents weren't mad. It would have been so much easier had they been, but they had this whole "turn the other cheek" thing that I honestly just can't do, and so, I felt even worse because had I been the kid, I would have been PISSED beyond belief at my director! But, the kid said, "Eh, we weren't that good, anyway" in an attempt to make ME feel better. And my heart broke a little more.

Jokingly, they asked if the kid could skip the rest of the basketball game performances. Hahahaha. It's nice to put it all behind us. I told the kid he could hang it over my head and say, "Hey, Mrs. band director, you remember the time you screwed me over and cried like a big ol' baby?" and he thought that was pretty funny.

Then, I had to go back to work. It's so easy to forget how draining teaching can be, since you have to be "on" all the time. So, I'm pretty exhausted.

THEN, a teacher who is an avid runner, asked me how I was doing with the program. The last time she asked me, I was nursing that pinched nerve issue. This time, it's the hip. I explained that I was taking a break since I was injured but I'd get back to it soon. She said, "Maybe you should just try fast walking so you won't hurt yourself." I said, "I've not injured myself while running. Everything I've done has been an accident or just an everyday activity that went wrong." She just said, "Oh" and walked away. I don't really like being told what to do.

I'm accident-prone. I have at least one if not more bruises on my body at all times. I have at least one scratch on me, somewhere, pretty much at all times. It's just the way things are for me. I run into stuff due to poor depth perception. I've come to terms with it. It's a non-issue for me at this point in my life.

I wish I could say that I ate amazingly well this week, but I can't. I'm not even going to recall the atrocities that have occurred in my stomach. PMS week shall be over soon. Every day is a new day.

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