Too Much?

School started this past week. I made the move to 3rd grade with only a little angst and a lot of excitement. I had spent 13 years in 5th grade, and it was definitely time to mix it up a little. Because of this change, my first day was certainly different than it has been in the past.

Fifth graders tend to swagger into class as seniors of the elementary school world. The girls usually hug each other and often squeal at each other's first day outfits. The boys smell like puppy dogs after we have PE or recess. A few of the kids have even started the journey into puberty and are a good head taller than their less mature classmates.

A good 5th grade teacher blends in with the pencil sharpener, serving as a facilitator in academic and social support; she certainly doesn't take center stage. Apparently, that's not the case in third grade.Turns out I could easily be a rock star to the 8 year old set.

Honestly, the one reason I requested my grade level change was that I had tired of the 5th grade curriculum. I mean I seriously know that the colonists beat out the redcoats in the Revolutionary War. I'm aware of the little known fact that The Boston Tea Party was in truth not your run of the mill tea party. I also know that "Checks and Balances" in government isn't about your mom balancing her checkbook. And truthfully, I think I might have run out of interesting ways to make any of those subjects relevant to my cell-phone carrying, ipod listening, converse wearing 5th-graders. So. . . I asked for a move.

 I think it's interesting how things that have worked for us in the past sometimes lose their hold over us and cause us to want something that we don't even recognize that we want. I'm not sure I really wanted 3rd grade; I was just finished with 5th grade. . . . like when I divorced Jeff or when I left ED.

 I wasn't completely sure what I did want but I knew instinctively that the time for  them to serve a purpose in my life was over. I was no longer in danger of losing my children if I divorced Jeff, and without the stressors of my life with Jeff, I really didn't need ED to cope any more.

I'm certainly not comparing my 5th grade years to a bad marriage or a mental illness. I would not trade my time with them (the 5th graders, of course) for anything. The lessons they taught me, the forgiveness and understanding they poured on me were gifts. Their need for my guidance and support were a true lifeline. I could even see myself going back to 5th grade in the future, if they could just get rid of all of the U.S. History stuff.  On the other hand, I would never even consider going back to Jeff or ED, no matter what either of them discarded.

The comparison between the two comes in me walking away from the known to a great big bunch of unknown and receiving gifts that I wasn't even aware that I wanted or needed.

Back to the first day of school.

I was taking the kids to music class when I felt a little hand very unassumingly, very innocently slip into my own. It simply took my breath away. When we played math games with partners, several of the kids asked me to be their partner. On the return morning, each child walked past my extended hand and into my arms for a goodmorning hug rather than a handshake.

I've written before that sometimes my contentedness and stable mental health frightens me. I look at my life and the goodness it is filled with and I'm afraid that I have too much. That's how I felt with this obvious affection from my new students.

"Too much" has always been a concern of mine. Somehow I've associated too much with greed, fearing that if I get more than my share someone else must do without. I'm learning, slowly. . but I'm learning that "too much" only goes with things like money or power or control or hurt.

I have an on-going discussion with Erika, where I tell her that I'm concerned that someday I will get so healthy I will forget about ED and that's when he'll have me again. She counters that I stay healthy because I never forget about ED. I sometimes fear the same thing about Jeff even though I know in my head that could never happen.

Anyway, with all of the physical touch from my 3rd graders, I realized how much I needed to be held. I had thought I had already put a check by everything on my list of needs but it turned out I actually needed to add things to the list.  Luckily, honest, authentic needs can never be too much. There is enough love for everybody to have more. There is enough contentment and wonder in the world for a second helping. There are plenty of 3rd grade hugs for me to want and receive every one of them.

God is good. Good enough to give gifts that I neither asked for or was brave enough to want. So while I fall in love with these 3rd graders or any of the other gifts in my life I'm not going to be afraid. Love and joy and peace and grace, the gifts I want in my life, are immeasurable. There is always enough and too much just doesn't exist.

Audience

Probably one of the most important concepts that I try to teach my students is that of audience. Mainly, you don't say "Yo!" as a greeting to the principal, and when you are writing a letter-to-the-editor, expressing a differing opinion, you don't sign the letter "Love, Bobby." It seriously takes the sting out of your letter.

When I was a kid, in the days before Caller ID, and my mom answered the telephone, I could always predict who the caller was by the tone of my mother's reply. (I could also tell when my grandmother called, but of course she is the only person who would call to chat before 7:00 a.m.) She knew her audience. So did I.

I'm sure my kids would say the same for me.

Hangin' with my extended family, my language is filled with "ain'ts," "cold drinks," and "hollers" (not the yelling kind.) In this setting, the oldest of us cousins (49) is still a grandbaby, not a granddaughter.

At church, my sometimes ugly mouth doesn't say nearly as many cuss words, and in a district-wide teachers meeting, I can actually sound like I know what I'm talking about in a fairly professional way.

Honestly, audience is one of the many things that I've struggled with over the years. A lot of the time I think I've been too focused on audience, to the point where I was more of an actor than a participant in my own life. I've tried to make happy endings, where there weren't any. I've tried to force pieces together that weren't even from the same puzzle.

When my ex-husband was the audience, I became passive, without need of tenderness or affirmation. I tried to convince my children that I had everything under control. I told my parents for years that I was happy and healthy, trying to convince myself as I repeated the words again and again.

In recent years, in healthier times, I have worked really hard to be my own audience in the way I choose to live. I've chosen to not only tell the truth, but try to live it as well. Certainly not an easy, or maybe even popular journey, but one that has allowed me to experience (and survive) both the good and the bad life has to offer. It has given me the chance to live honestly and to be present. I am finally able to honor and accept what God has created in me.

I have discovered that as I live authentically that the number of relationships in my life has actually grown and that all of those have morphed into something deeper and more meaningful, which is kind of the opposite as to what I expected.

I made this blog public in a weird way to protect myself. I figured I was going to be honest with myself, with others and that to some degree would keep folks at a distance.

I thought perhaps it would be meaningful to some other random person who spends her free time with Ed, but I was not prepared that it would actually draw people into my life. Since my aunts and friends have started  reading my writing and sharing it, I feel as if I've fallen in love all over again, with the realization that I didn't need to gauge my audience after all. They would love me in spite of, or maybe because of, my many imperfections and needs.

Life without secrets. . . I'm not sure it gets any better.

So while I still don't yell "Yo!" to my boss or sign my letters to the editor with "love," as to living (and writing) I'm going to keep showing up as me, ready and excited for what that might bring.