An Interesting Experience In Class

Today I had an interesting realization. It came at the behest of a student trying to defend himself, by placing the world on me. Do I actually believe he wanted me to think this way? I think its the fact that he didn't care enough to wonder... didn't see me as a human, but rather as some drone to whom he could ditch his shit upon and run away clear hearted. Do I believe he wanted me to think my job a mundane or perhaps cruel position, a prison guard, a dictator with bound hands, a babysitter... yes, he wanted me to see myself the way he saw me.
Cruel adolescence, rub thee of any empathy, of any respect?
Or had I?
Today I had an interesting revelation. It came to me suddenly and hit with all the rage of a tsunami and yet I couldn't snap like a tree, I couldn't flood like a building, I couldn't scream like a child, I had to take it. It poured into me, yet again like a poison that I must simultaneously suck from the wound. A perilous feat to attend to, especially while balancing on too feet, the poison making me dizzy, the intoxicant making my speech hazy yet I must speak, for isn't that my purpose? I'm in the middle of giving a lecture. The disease is brought on slowly, but sometimes hits like a baseball bat across the face, and today was my day of standing too close to the batter. One could fill up with rage when being struck, but most don't because the blow knocks them from their confidence, knocks the warm air from their lungs, and the bruise becomes as normal as the breathing. Each breath. Each day, another attempt to regain their composure, to regain some semblance of the humanity they know should be there. The search leads to many ill-fitted ragtag designs, a new plan, a new addiction, a new voice that isn't theirs but they learn to project with it, to create fear with it, to create the condition of oppression they wish didn't exist in the world, and that each ludicrous lecture lambastes against. They may take this character on until it consumes, or reject it straight away. But does the profession require it?

(at this point to project hope upon myself, I would say NO, but the truth is, I don't know)

Today I had an interesting reality. I was confronted with the reasons why people leave jobs they love. They do it, so it doesn't destroy them.
What after all am I willing to give? Already I see my friends less, my parents and family seldom. My love life seems unavailable. My recovery time seems to take longer and longer. I am exhausted. I am confused. I am hurt and struggling. I am fake, insincere. I am in a relationship with a job in which I give as much as I can, and get very little (at times) back.
I see, or rather I feel why people give up. I won't but I don't blame them. I cant imagine these circumstances lasting forever... but if I could, I would most certainly be disheartened and walk away to find something more fulfilling.




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Right now, I am fine. I am not thinking or nor never really was thinking of quitting my job. I just question my ability to do it sometimes... and today was one of the first days where I really wondered what the point was. Later in the day I got to share with a class about many good things I have seen in the world. It was really nice. I almost had too much stuff. I am glad my job allows me to follow my passions in terms of content... because the babysitter role is really too much for me. I hate the idea that my students look at me as a warden rather than a connection.
I hate when they treat me like I have no worth except to correct them. It really is such a selfish mentality they get caught in. I can imagine why parents lose their minds when their children become teens. Suddenly aware that they have no idea who this person is before them... and though they want to find out, the child has little to offer or refuses. They seem like adults sometimes but other times like sociopaths.