Scars

Thomas Hardy once said, “The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.” Today I met with a bitter disappointment. I have never cried in front of my kids, but today was so devastating that there was nothing I could do to keep them from seeing the reality that when they fail, it is my failure as well. I am not talking about a test or something trivial. I’m talking about when they make a choice that forever changes the course of their life. I have seen kids be taken away in handcuffs; cops have taken kids right from my room. But today it was one of my kids and I can not describe how devastating it was. It was his fault, what he did was wrong. But I can do nothing but question myself about it. How did I not see it? How could I have a child that I considered to be one of my kids for 2 years, and be blind to what he was doing? That was my failure. My heart hurts, because I can’t tell this kid that everything is going to be okay. My heart hurts because, I feel like I failed him in someway. And in my devastation I overreacted to something stupid that another kid did. I tore everything off the back wall in my classroom. Because why should they have anything nice, when they do nothing to deserve it? A kid decided to be a jerk and rip my focal walls. And so I took it all down. Because that group of kids thinks that they are the center of the world. That we should bend for every whim they have. And I refuse. I will not allow them to own anything in my life. I will not allow them to be another disappointment in my life. I will not have another scar because of them.