Superlatives

Throughout my very trying, crisis-riddled life of hardships, there have been several points  I can remember having the monumental thought "this is the hardest thing I have ever done." It's a pretty interesting list of situations when I look back on it because a) they all impacted nobody but me b) they were very momentary c) they were all things I went into blindly. They are as follows:

• Once in high school my Dad woke me up on a Saturday morning and said "Hey Hannah do you want to do a 5K with me today?" And I said "Sure I've never done one" ..............I was (luckily) in shape at this point because I had been running a lot in guard, but never really more than a mile. So I didn't know what to expect in a 5K race. At some point in the beginning Dad left me because he was obviously faster, and I ran along battling the voice in my head telling me to walk.  As I was getting closer and closer to the starting line (which I thought was the finish line) I thought to myself "THIS IS THE HARDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE!!!"
• Years later I was posing as a (clothed) model for my uncle's art class, which required me to sit totally still in the same position for 45 minute increments. I was on a stool with no back support and I had to stare at the same point on a wall the whole time. Many moments toward the end of each session I thought to myself "This is the hardest thing I have EVER done."
• One summer day in college I got suckered into going with some friends to a yoga class I thought would be enlightening and refreshing. It wasn't. It was bikram yoga which is in a room over 100 degrees so you sweat buckets and come close as you can to fainting. At a certain point into that class all I could think was "This is the hardest thing I have EVER done."

But now I'm a college graduate and in my first year of teaching. And I bet you think I'm about to say that it's the hardest thing I've ever done. But just wait.

I am more stressed than I have ever been at any point ever. I don't think I had this much anxiety while taking my first breath coming out of my mother's womb. But now I have a lot, and the place where I am stuck is how I do not know that it can be avoided. THERE IS JUST SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT! My mind is consumed and I mean CONSUMED with my job. I come home late and think about it all night and then I have dreams about it and I wake up early and lie there thinking about it then go to work and remain super stimulated thinking about it for 8 hours. Then do it all over. I have started grinding my teeth because of it. I catch myself numerous times a day just biting with a tense jaw and have to force myself to relax.

It goes something like this: what am I teaching this week and what skills are they lacking and what do they need to master before ISAT in March and how is the kid doing who gets bullied a lot and what about the kid who had two recent deaths in the family and the kid whose mom is so worried about him she comes to me crying and the kid who doesn't have anything and the girl who believes lies about herself and when is our next unit plan due and is it done yet and what are we doing for it and did they really understand mixed numbers or do we need more time on fractions and have I organized my files of student data yet and is their narrative writing good enough to move on to persuasive writing and how can I make persuasive writing more exciting for them when writing workshop is so short but writing workshop has to be short because we have to fit in word study and I wonder if word study is really working because I mean some of their spelling test have been better but some kids it's not helping like the one kid who I am convinced has a learning disability but I'm doing what I can to document it so I can get him services but then my kids who are crazy smart are getting bored because I'm slowing things down for my students who need more time to learn things and should I really have to choose who gets a more meaningful education this week- my top kids or my low kids- and what can I do to challenge them and how will I fit that into my planning and oh they are all so sweet to me but ARE THEY LEARNING WHAT THEY NEED??? I am tired and I am sleepy and my jaw hurts and I need to go home where I don't have to be the adult in the room in charge who always has all the answers because I don't have all the answers.

See that right there I didn't even try on. I just wrote my thoughts as they came and they often look like that except with more names and more negativity and more getting mad at myself. And then it ends with something along the lines of "this is the hardest thing I have ever done."