Puzzle Pieces

Teaching has made me a different person. I see things from perspectives I have never seen things before.

I've been reminded that while, yes, teaching is hard...it's also very scary. I am in charge of the lives of students all day, every day, 5 days a week. But, that's something I already knew.

I'm seeing things from so many angles, I can barely handle it sometimes. Somehow, I have to be able to understand and accept the girl who has no compassion for others while simultaneously comforting and creating a safe space for the young man going through a serious identity crisis - sometimes while this girl is confronting the young man. I have to love the student who refuses to stand for the pledge as much as I love the student who wants to shove the U.S.A's conservative politics down everyone's throats.

And, to tell you the truth - that part isn't so hard.

The hard part is convincing other people that all of these different personalities and flawed youth and perfect youth and sensitive youth are all worth loving. The hard part is trying to convince other people to see how what they may be saying is (or could be) irreparably damaging someone else - even if that is not the intended consequence.

I'll burden you with my most recent plight: I feel like I am not hearing voices of compassion for those affected by tragedy so much as I am hearing demands being made by those unaffected. Now, I'm a grown up. I understand that we want and need to discuss our beliefs and opinions about guns and God or lack-there-of.

But I can't help but notice the missing voice in all of this - the people who might be getting tramped on.

I'm thinking specifically of Atheists - but I suppose the Muslims or Buddhists or any other non-Christian faith may fall under this umbrella - how those families must be feeling to be hearing again and again "lack of [CHRISTIAN] God has allowed for these things to happen."

The lack of a christian god is being used synonymously with "lack of morals" and "lack of being able to discern right from wrong" and "lack of self control" and "inability to empathize."

Do you think, out of the 26 families affected by the most recent tragedy, that there is not one family of Atheist or non-Christian beliefs?

What message are we sending those families? That their child deserved to die? That they were just bringing their child up in a way where something like that was just bound to happen in their life anyway...? That they are a moral-less people? That somehow, Christians have it figured out better than non-Christians?

I don't think a lack of God is our issue.

I think a lack of human decency is. 

Teenage Drama

I wrote this when I was like...15. It's not really meant to make much sense unless you know the exact situation I'm talking about. I found it and thought I'd put it in here, just in case I ever want to look at it again!

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I use to try hard to hold back the tears
I've kept them suppressed for so many years
You walked out the door, and we don't know why

I guess this time it's okay to cry.

You took our hearts and walked away.
I don't want to miss you today.

Can you come back?
I swear I'll forgive you
Just come home.
We don't want to miss you.

You're not the same person we used to know
You used to love us, but now you don't
I remember days when you used to care.

I have a fear I'll be just like you
Emotionally lost and no clue what to do
Eventually "mine" will write about me
wishing for me to be who I used to be

- And maybe it will save me.

Wrap your arms around me until your knuckles are burning white.

I think way too much.
I am tired of constantly reminding myself that the 'problems' don't lay with me.
It's my job to turn things around, to keep them positive.
It just gets so exhausting.

Growing up I was constantly in this dialogue with my father:
He would say: "Nikki, what is your job?"
My answer: "To keep [insert sibling name] happy."

This has worked against me in quite a few ways. I've come to learn that I come second to myself.
However, I've also convinced myself that [particularly in relationships] because my 'significant other' comes before me, that I am also #1 on his list.

On some level, I feel like it's absurd that I put others before me... and I find it even more absurd that I would put myself before another on their 'list'.... what a twisted web we've spun!

Pieces of me:

Sometimes I drive a little too fast
And don’t realize the time has passed
I turn the radio up way too loud

I’m trying to drive straight through my life
And drown out all I’ve left behind
But I don’t want to do that anymore