Fluorescent Orange Toe Nails

The woman sitting across from me at the coffee shop has them, and they’re terrifying.

As I sat in Mass during our diocesan teachers institute, I noticed all of the familiar faces that had helped me grow both intellectually and spiritually during my time in school. It was both comforting and surreal to realize that I was not one of them. I still don’t really feel like I am. It’s strange to lump yourself into a group of people who you’ve always seen as something distinct and separate from yourself. It’s hard to let yourself be something new.

I feel new, though. I feel more and more every day that I’m supposed to be teaching. I guess it’s hard to explain. They just seem of a different place and time.

I started thinking about them more. What had they meant to me during those formative years? How did they rest in my memory. Not all of them made it into my list of “life changers,” but they all had belonged in a similar place in my history. They were all in some way important.

When I decided I wanted to teach, I thought a lot about the lasting memory I might have on students. Since August, though, that’s something that has hardly crossed by mind. And I’m thankful for that. That’s too much pressure to think about day in and day out. I can only focus on what I can do, right now, every day for my students. I can only hope that they’re understanding something. Anything.

Hopefully some of that pressure with ease with time. But for now, it’s necessary, and heavy like friendship. And I need it, because it keeps my head where I need it.

Even if my students don’t revere me as the one that brought them a love of language, they will remember me.