Moments in Time

Teaching is a lot like being a mother.  Besides the obvious and annoying reasons, like having to remind kids to pick up after themselves, play nice with others, and keep their hands to themselves, and besides the philosophical reasons, like investing time, energy, and love into children with the unyielding hope that you are somehow changing the world and making it a better place.  Between these two extremes lies a similarity that has caused me both grief and joy as a teacher.  It may simply be referred to by a phrase we often use, "Time flies".

As a 6th year teacher, I can see this phrase holding fast.  Even as I look back on this current year the passage of time has been consistent and leaves me wondering where the year has already gone.  Day to day, block by block, it often does not.  In fact, many times during class periods I feel as if somehow time is regressing.  Much joy comes from the passage of time - the ending of a school year (finally) and the starting of summer, getting rid of a student or class who has made you want to kill yourself many times or at least not want to get out of bed in the morning, and seeing the awkward, little, annoying Freshmen transform into semi-adults.  However, the passage of time is a double-edged sword.  While I am filled with joy seeing the once Freshman I had transform, tears always well up in my eyes as I watch them walk across the stage at graduation.  Every year I watch my beloved AP students leave, students into whom I've invested and poured time, energy, and love.  They always end up leaving and leave me once again starting all over with a new batch of students.  Summer flies even faster than the school year, which again brings sorrow and nervousness as to what the new year will be like.  As a teacher, you learn to adapt to an ever-changing environment and understand that the passage of time can bring relief as well as mourning. 

This is the same paradox that parents face. I think I knew that as a teacher it would be similar since everyone tells new teachers the same thing they tell new parents, "Write things down, you'll forget all the great/funny things that happen", "The first year is the worst, it will get better", and "Before you know it, the year is over".  However, experiencing this passage of time as a parent makes you really annoyed because all these people really are right.  You really do need to write things down because you won't remember them, the first year really is terrible, and I really can't believe 7 months has gone by already.

As I look back over the past 7 months and over my 6 years of teaching, I can't remember the day to day occurrences - the funny things, the great stories, or what I said or did.  All I have are small snippets of time; small moments frozen in time that I know will fade into the background of "life" if they are not somehow preserved.  So, I am going to preserve the few moments I currently have frozen in my mind.

I remember...

• The moment I saw Esther for the first time.  I never felt connected to her while I was pregnant, but the moment I saw her I wanted to hold her.  I didn't care that she was screaming or gross and covered in slime, I needed to hold her.
• The first time they wheeled her into my room after she had been cleaned up after the delivery.  She was still, unmoving, except for her eyes.  They were wide open, bright, and moving.  Her eyes met mine and my heart stopped and I thought "What do I do now?" I didn't even feel like I knew her.  I was not overcome by an overwhelming love or connection to her.  I was terrified.
• Being scared every night for the first 4 months. Scared she would wake up, scared she would scream and never stop, scared I would throw her out of frustration, scared I wouldn't get any sleep and be more exhausted than I already was the next day, scared because every night looked different than the last.  There is nothing predicable with a newborn.
• The feeling that there was no longer an ending or starting to my day.  My life existed as a series of 1.5 hour segments.  1.5 hours to nurse, 1.5 hours to do something, another 1.5 hours to nurse, etc.  I existed on a 24 hour schedule for the first 3 months. 
• Frustration at how much of my freedom was taken.  I couldn't even pee w/o having to think about Esther first!  I mourned the loss of the freedom I had so easily taken for granted.
• Crying as I sat at the base of her crib willing her to go to sleep.  Wishing my life was different. Wishing I could leave. So exhausted.
• Watching Scott pull out of the driveway when he would leave to work nights.  Jealous of his freedom.  He was not a prisoner in his own home. He could leave and feel like a regular person.  He could leave everything behind...
• Leaving the house for a walk one night and talking to God, imploring him to explain to me again why He had so explicitly called me into motherhood.  Arriving back at the house and sobbing so hard as my body willed me to not enter, to not face the responsibility that was inside.
• Holding her singing "Amazing Grace" and "Trust and Obey" at the top of my lungs so she could hear it over her crying. Willing her to hear it and calm down. Cursing whatever it was I ate that gave her this uncomfortable gas.
• Texting Scott in the middle of the night updates on how things were going as he was at work. 
• Feeling the weight of the responsibility I had entered into.  I could no longer be a selfish person, I could no longer think of myself first.  The dawning of the realization that no child ever survives without the ultimate selfless sacrifice of their mother and the final understanding of exactly what the sacrifice costs. 
• The complete understanding of the entirety of how much God loves me.  He paid the ultimate selfless sacrifice out of unconditional love and His love is often not returned by us.  I wanted to love Him back more than ever because I finally understood exactly what it feels likes to selflessly sacrifice for someone who does not even acknowledge your presence.
• The day I returned to work.  I fed her and placed her back into her crib, sound asleep.  Knowing that when she woke up, with the bright eyes only babies are blessed with, she would not see my eyes peering back at her.  I walked out to my car and crumpled into Scott.  Sobbing into his shoulder my fears that she would think I abandoned her and realizing for the first time that I actually had grown to love her.  
• The first time I knew Esther recognized me.  My heart swelled.
• The first time she really started babbling, when I could see she was a person.  She smiled back at me and continued babbling.  I could have watched her for hours because her babbles were feeding my soul - scorched and weary from serving so long w/o anything in return.
• Laying under her activity mat with her after we got back from Thanksgiving. Scott had just started traveling again, it was his first night away from us.  Esther was smiling into the mirror, kicking away, and my heart ached for him. I missed him so much and was so overwhelmed by the beauty of what my daughter was doing in front of me.  How far she had come from the early days. I couldn't believe the transformation that was occurring before my eyes and I wanted so badly for Scott to be there, to understand the significance of what I was watching.
• The thrill and exhilaration every time I noticed her doing something new that she hadn't been able to do before - laughing, starting to reach, bat, roll, play with her hands, pull her feet to her mouth, and sit.

I have a hunch that most of these moments in time are frozen in my mind because of the amount of emotion that is associated with them.  I can often look at pictures I snapped of these moments and the emotions come flooding back.  I hope that doesn't go away.  This is my small attempt to make sure I always remember the journey.  Even though they may be seen as ugly moments, they are the necessary path in motherhood.  They are the moments that have shaped me and my relationship with Esther.  They are the moments that make me a real mom, a real person.  I want to remember the good, the bad, and the ugly moments in time because they are part of what makes this a real story...my story.