Kids today were beyond horrible. One teacher decided she was going to quit loud enough that all of our cutting kids could hear. The kids in my class were worse and sent another teacher out and left me alone to try and get them to learn something. I was sitting there giving one of those speeches that makes you wonder whose voice is coming out of your voice... your father's, your idea of what their fathers say, or worse, your latent ideas of why these children need your harvard educated help.
I remember when I left MSU thinking I need to make my life hard and do something for a career that would make me tougher. I went to harvard not for the respect, or whatever, but because I want experience that would help me get whatever job I want in a tough area. I went to new york because it fit my image of what a hard job would be. First year teacher, in a first year school, in urban blight that is centuries deep. And I give my speech because it is a hard thing I wouldn't have to do in a dot com, or an i bank, or a phd, or whatever.
After giving the speech it doesn't seem hard. After seeing the teacher who left come back and give her speech only to get more kids saying "hurry up with this shit so I can go home," it didn't seem that hard either. Its not hard because it isn't personal, its not hard because I'm not really learning much. Its maybe hard because I have to be organized and prepared but I could do that at lahser or taking random tutoring gigs off craigs list.
What is hard, much harder than I would wish on anything, has to be something that is actually connected to you. Two of my best friends lost one of their best friends to addiction. To go through the trials of college and begin adult hood with someone only to have them sucked away is hard beyond belief. Worse still must be that the affliction, the cause is so anonymous. It is hard to personify drugs, there is no where to point for cause.
The summer before I was hospitalized with a manic episode I read a memoir from someone else with manic depression. Her life struggle with the amazing highs of a manic episode and the lifeless doldrums of lithium treatment seemed silly for me. I saw her struggle, I knew the dangers, and yet I was unable to stop my own manic episode later in the year, and unable to enjoy the slowed, numbed life of lithium and anti-psychotics that followed.
I had no control over this illness, despite the fact that it was in my mind, arguably the only thing I really do have control over. Similarly with addiction, he probably had no control over it in that moment despite the fact that it seems like something one would control.
So where can you point for cause? If there is an entity in the universe controlling everything than they are to blame. However they are also to thank because they were able to bring someone with you for the time you had him. Perhaps he was able to teach you everything he could in that amount of time, and it was time for him to move on. Maybe your pain right now was supposed to teach you something that you will carry with you along with your memories.
I have no idea how hard it must be to deal with this pain. It is far too easy for me to make my arm's length generalizations, and point to an easy cause for why someone should be pulled from the earth in such a manner. There is nothing easy about this. Thinking about it is harder than anything I have dealt with this year, and I was never lucky enough to actually meet this man. I can only hope that those who did know him, know and believe that they arenot alone in their pain, and that anybody else reading this can send prayers, and thoughts their way, and also to whatever friends that have accompanied you to this point in your life.
6 comments:
it's like being on a vicodin prescription after you get your wisdom teeth out--for awhile, when you're medicated, it's okay, and it sucks but you can deal with it--but the second that shit wears off, you're sobbing, breathless, pinned to the ground like you and gravity are siamese twins... rob is hurting pretty bad still--i got through some of it the first week when i was actually physically here, where he died... keep reading the blogs man.
and thanks.
I'm a firm believer in the notion that everything happens for a reason - it's what keeps me from being trapped in existentialist despair and the frustrations of painful events. That's not to boil any one person's passing down to a simple catch phrase that "it must've been for a reason" - but it's to commemorate this person's life and death with the certainty that their existence was not in vain.
Where does that leave us in terms of where we're at with our school? Yes, we voluntarily subject ourselves daily to the abuse that our kids dole out, the abuse that they've endured throughout their lives and through generations. But I admire you for holding your head up, because we all know that ultimately, all this school crap will just make sense in the end. Your speeches too :)
wow. fantastic post, carl. thanks.
yes, carl, thanks.
I had a dream that he was back last night. I only remember fragments, but I remember seeing an X-Ray of him kicking around in a coffin, half-asleep from a deep high. I don't think I got to talk to him before I woke up, wondering where I am and whether it actually happened for a few interesting seconds.
It got me thinking about those afterlife thoughts I've grown quite acquainted with. Did he control that dream? Did my subconscious give it to me, to remind me he is still out there?
I believe in an afterlife, and that some things do happen for a reason. To continue with descriptive metaphors, thse are kinda like a cast on a serious injury. It's obviously no help for the initial, brutal shock, and when it finally is attached to the shattered area, it helps, you feel you're getting better, but you still look at that part of you and know it's fucked up, and it won't ever be quite right again.
"I had no control over this illness, despite the fact that it was in my mind, arguably the only thing I really do have control over." It's hard to remember that the brain is an organ, too. You can't really control it. Like your kidneys, like your uterus. Well, not so much like YOUR uterus. You can't have it removed, though. You just have to live with whatever it puts out. I don't know if people who've never had to visit a neurologist or psychiatrist will ever really understand the brain-as-organ thing.
Emily
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