A normal, caring conversation

I had a crazy day today.

Nothing unusual for a teacher, really… many teacher days can seem crazy. If you are not a teacher, and I described my day to you from beginning to end, I imagine you’d have all kinds of questions. You’d think parts of it make no sense, and you’d be right, but I’d tell you that this is just a regular day in the life of a teacher. 

Many of my colleagues had similar crazy days today — and this is also not unusual. This is a regular Friday. We were pulled in different directions solving different problems, doing different things. There seemed to be little overlap today.

I got to the end of the “regular” school day today and went off to a conference that another school was hosting. In the taxi on the way there, I conversed with colleagues about The Boot and travel and other bits and pieces — all lovely but condensed conversation. Once we got to the conference, I had to sit on the aisle because of The Boot (my leg had been throbbing all day — not a help to the crazy day). I was beginning to be worried that I would be sitting alone because of The Boot when a colleague came to sit next to me. Confession: I do worry about sitting alone sometimes; not all the time, but sometimes.

I warned Katie when she sat next to me that I was in a cranky mood because of The Boot, and because I had had a crazy day. She smiled and said that was okay and asked me how I was doing generally (“outside of The Boot”) and then she wanted to know the story behind The Boot. Katie is a details person and had lots of questions. I had already told the short version of the story what seemed like hundreds of times, but Katie wanted to know history and specifics and she was such a good listener. I told a very extended version of the story of The Boot that went back to the age of 16, involved travel to Venezuela, moving to England, surgery, and lots of research. Katie listened to all of it. And asked even more questions. 

And then the conference started. 

The conference was about middle school, and the speaker was talking about how important it was for us to be advocates for children, even when sometimes those children were challenging and desperate for attention. I could identify with a lot of it and spent part of his session feeling bad about the kids I saw that I didn’t talk to enough today. Later when we broke out into smaller groups, I realized that my mood had changed somewhat, and it wasn’t just because the speaker was brilliant. I mean, he was great. But I realized I felt different because of what had happened just prior to his talk. 

I realized that until the moment when Katie sat next to me, I had had the kind of crazy day when I hadn’t spoken to a single person in a real, genuine way. My entire day had consisted of snippets and busy-ness and getting things done and logistics of putting out fires or paperwork or helping people find places, etc. I had talked to many different people — including students — but had not had a real, active conversation with any of them.

Until Katie at 3:50pm.

All I really needed to get out of my cranky zone was a real conversation. It was sooooo normal and so nice and so easy, and so caring. And after that, the day was better. 

Thanks, Katie, for just asking questions and listening. Thanks for a normal, caring conversation to bring me back to life.