Work, Part I

So I start work again soon. For me, work means "school" as I am in education. It is the last facet of the life I had before my HC that I haven't resumed. Picking it up again is causing me a little anxiety. I'm not having a full-blown panic attack about it, but I' worried that I could. It's just been on my mind a little bit more than I'd like it to be. Sure, knowing that I have to go back to work after a summer off never inspires the "jolly" side of me to come out, but I never usually think about it as much as I am now. I'm making sure to be really good and not to forget to take the Lexapro . . . because that will help prevent a high state of anxiety from completely debilitating me, rendering me non-functional just when I need to be functional.

On May 6 (the day I had my 20 week ultrasound), my doctor called me in the evening to let me know things looked bad. That's it. I haven't been to work since. In the beginning, I simply took the rest of that week off work so that I could attend the myriad of doctor and further testing appointments that come with a poor prenatal diagnosis. Then after that was all said and done, and our decision was made, I spent the next week anxiously at home, waiting for those appointments to be made . . . the ones that would separate me from Michael. I was trying to be optimistic, thinking that I could go back to work for the last two weeks of school. My thought was that work would be good for me, that it would bring structure to my days and keep my mind from going into the dark neighborhoods it has a tendency to frequent. (And it went there even before our HC.) The Nazis had this horrible phrase in the entrance gates to all of their concentration camps, "Arbeit mach frei," or "Work makes you free." And for me sometimes it does. I can get so drowned in the tasks that I need to complete, and I begin to work at almost a maniacal rate, that I am temporarily "free" from all of the other painful things that normally occupy my mind. The work drowns out my other sorrows.

It became clear, however, that going back to work was a ludicrous idea. I'd have to face students who remembered me round and could so clearly see now that I wasn't. I didn't want to answer any questions from the kids who didn't have tact enough to keep their questions to themselves. As for the kids who did have a sense of decorum and privacy, I didn't want to see the questions in their faces, even if they were never, ever going to give voice to them. They were there and I didn't want to confront those yet. I didn't want to see any co-workers, except the one or two that I absolutely trusted in my department. Only they could hear me cry on the phone as they called to check in on me. The rest I would see when I came back to work in the fall. I would get a fresh start in the fall. I would have the summer to grieve and to heal, and I could come back to work -- different from the person I was before -- cracked -- but less raw. So, instead, I began to work at home . . . on house things, almost like I was nesting for the baby I would never have. If school work sometimes set me free before, housework would now, damn it. I began to clean, clean, clean and paint, paint, paint . . . it helped me function and focus instead of sit on the couch and think too much. And now all that has to end because the other work beckons.

Did I mention that I think I'm a workaholic? Because I think I am. I can't decide if I just have an all-consuming job for ten months out of the year, or if I just work really, really hard and get really compulsive about it. But I'm good; that much I know on some level. I was teacher of the year at the school I was at previous to this, and I get lots of students who look me up as they are graduating or now that they're in college to say "hi" and let me know how much they learned, and colleagues like me and my principals have all said that I'm great. But I also worry tremendously that I'm not . . . that's the outward part of me that you don't see. The part that is suspicous of myself. That part of me that knows I can still do it better. I can reach another student, or figure out a better way to help make a connection, or maybe finally say the magic word that will inspire another to start turning in assignments (at all, much less on time.) Will you find out that I'm not really "all that"? Because I don't really think of myself as all that. But I do have great teaching days, and I love those days where I think that my lessons are going well, and I made that connection, and the kids were enthusiastic--even the ones who aren't normally. I'm thankful for those days.

I was speeding along like that, having pretty good teaching days two years ago, when I got sideswiped. In light of the poor prenatal diagnosis and HC -- now that was a KO -- no sideswipe will ever compare to that. But I took this one hard. And that's another of the reasons, aside from going back to work after a HC, that I am anxious. I will explain in Part II later.