"Your Kids Could Be Normal!"

It seems fitting that the expression "I wear my heart on my sleeve" comes from my beloved William Shakespeare (Othello). I not only wear my heart on my sleeve, but I also generally bring along a large neon sign that points, "Hey, heart here. Feel free to break." It's a good and a bad thing.

It means that, if you are someone I care about, I will love you deeply. I will stick up for you, defend you, listen to you, love you--sometimes to an excruciating degree. When I watched Father of the Bride with Steve Martin, I felt like someone actually understood me. There's a part where the daughter, Annie, has fought with her intended, and her dad, George, goes to talk to him.

"You know, Bryan...Annie is a very passionate person and passionate people tend to overreact at times. Annie comes from a long line of major overreactors. Me. I can definitely lose it. My mother...a nut. My grandfather...stories about him are legendary. The good news, however, is that this overreacting tends to get proportionately less by generation, so your kids could be normal." 
"But on the upside, with this passion comes great spirit and individuality, which is probably one of the reasons you love Annie." (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Father_of_the_Bride_(1991_film)

Exactly! So, yes, you may have to put up with some craziness from me from time to time (or, a lot of the time...), but you'll always know where you stand with me. My family, my friends, my students, my pets, my co-workers... These are people I care deeply about. I invest myself in my relationships. I take them all personally.

And while that is a good thing for others--meaning they will get all of my devotion and advocacy--it's not always the best thing for me.

I remember sitting at Baccalaureate next to my best friend in high school, bawling my eyes out as two girls sang "Friends Are Friends Forever" by Michael W. Smith (I know that dates me. That's okay.) Sheri turned to me and said (a phrase I've heard many times over the years), "Are you crying?"

Of course I was crying! We were going to different colleges! She was going to St. Louis for the summer! We hadn't gone more than two days without speaking for four years, we could finish each other's sentences, we were unbeatable at Pictionary... We were inseparable!

She calmly explained that we would write each other and visit each other's colleges. We would be fine. But I knew the truth then. I loved her more. She was ready to move on, for a myriad of reasons that had nothing to do with me, but she was ready. It was going to be okay for her, but I would be devastated.

This same type of scenario happened to me when I graduated from college, when my teaching partner of 11 years moved to a new grade level, when various friends have moved away. It's not that people are leaving me that hurts so much as the way they leave. It's okay for them. It usually takes a long time to be okay for me.

This week, it was work. What happened isn't relative, but the fact that it hurt my feelings. I could feel Eric itching to ask, "Are you crying?" I know he couldn't understand why something that should just make me angry could make me feel hurt. But it's that heart on my sleeve. I will give you all of me. I will protect you and listen to you and support you, even if that's not my role. Unfortunately, when I don't get that sort of treatment back, it feels. It hurts. 

Part of me wants to say, "That's it! I'm done!" I will wear a patch over my heart, keep it hidden, keep it all business. As Lloyd Dobbler said, "The rain on my car is a baptism. The new me, Ice Man, Power Lloyd! My assault on the world begins now." (Say Anything)

But, like Lloyd, I can't. This is me. My students will continue to go to high school and forget all about me, and I shall watch them lovingly from afar, remembering when they'd write me notes that said, "Best Teacher Ever!" I will smother my friends and nephew and nieces and co-workers with a ridiculous amount of cherishing affection while they develop and grow away from me. I will burn my teaching candle from THREE ends, because I fall for all those kids. I will give my all, and then cry in Eric's arms when I don't get it back. I'll be confused--where did I go wrong?--but I won't change. What I will need to hear is that I'm not wrong, but that doesn't mean other people are either. Not everyone operates the way I do. We can't all be labeled "a nut".

The good news is, I've watched Ben Hall. He's just as bad. Nope, no chance that my kids will be "normal."