Help!! I’m Buried Alive!

I need to write.

Seriously. I. NEED. TO. WRITE.

It has been one of those days…and right before I sat down and began to write…I took these photos to show you what kind of day. No. What kind of week. Wait. What kind of freaking month it has been!!

I am a tidy, neat, organized kind of chica when it comes to work. My bathroom and the kitchen–not so much. But work. I got it all down. That is why these photos are so shocking….at least to me.

But where does one start? How did it get so out of control? I honestly feel buried alive by things. Things to do. Things to fill out, read, write, turn in, pay, create, file, organize, go-over, grade, research, and throw away. Things that I’m not going to let myself get in a tizzy about. Things that I’m going to take one-thing at a time. Things that I am going to slowly carve away at. Things that I control–Connie–you’re not buried alive!!

This is a crazy time of year. Only 21 more days of school left and a million and twenty nine more things to do before then. Teachers are crazy. Students are nutty. And it’s easy to get buried in all the silliness. It’s easy to pile on negativity, complaining, and blame. Bury myself in something heavy that I can’t really see along with all the things you see sitting in front of me.

But where will it get me anyways?

Truth of the matter is, these are my last days in a place I’ve spent three years in. Children I’ve got to share my days with–see grow in many ways. This is a place that has helped me grow incredibly–has paid my bills–and supported my dreams, even when I didn’t believe it so.

A third grade girl gave me this painting today as a going away gift. She knew I would like it, she said. And boy is she right!!

I think part of why I am burying myself–is to keep a big part of me here. I get all teared up just looking at that painting. I’m not ready to put things away yet, or to file those last grades. As much as I hated this place at times–all that suffering and pain was one of my greatest teachers ever. I am grateful for the shit. Seriously, deeply grateful.

And the craziest thing of all, that I think when I look around my room, is it feels just like yesterday that it was the first day of school. The music teacher and I walked in for the first time and I turned to her and said “this is my last year here.” And I had no idea what I meant–I just knew that something else was waiting for me across the bend.

So here I am. About to turn the page. Start a new chapter. What will the new winds ahead of me have to say? I’m sure there will be challenges and craziness of my day.

But the one thing I know..that I’m certain of, for sure, is that I am an Art teacher. This is what I do. This is what I am here for–if it be in this room, online, or on the beach in Costa Rica. Thanks to these past three years, I know this of me now completely, and I embrace it–with all its ups and downs, messy paint spills, disorganized desk top, and masterpieces from third graders .