Perspective

Today should have been a banner day for me. Last night I picked up my Christmas present from my sister at FedEx. With her permission I opened it early. I *kinda* knew what it would be based on the repeated questions for the last six months like this:

Kim: So if I WERE to get you a computer for Christmas, hypothetically, what kind would you want?
Me: A MacBook, white.
Kim: Okay, forget I asked.

So last night I had the fun of unwrapping probably the best Christmas present EVER. This even tops when she gave us the GameCube! Yet, as cool as the computer is (as yet he/she is unnamed), it was really hard for me to be very enthusiastic.

Today I found out that I am now a Nationally Board Certified teacher. I worked for a couple of months for that and it's a pretty big deal, but, again, not really very exciting.

I spent today receiving very thoughtful gifts and cards from students, congratulations from colleagues, and having "shin-digs" in all of my classes (parties aren't allowed in school). This week I got out the fourth issue of the school paper this year, which looks darn good.

After I left work today I went to the final for my Tolkien class where I got my paper back (B+) and performed what I feel is pretty well on the exam in spite of being too upset to study for it.

Still, I am just overwhelmingly sad all the time. In fact it was rather exhausting today having to feign joy all day with my students. In my grad class I told them what was going on. Well, the woman who sits next to me just finalized her divorce today under disturbigly similar circumstances.

I saw Andrew today because he took a cat to the vet for us. He was sweet. Still, I cried my eyes out before he even broke eye contact. This is seriously torture. I'm not even exaggerating.

Oddly one of the few things that gives me genuine comfort are the words of my students (only a tiny fraction of whom have any idea about what's going on) and former students who have the privilege of knowing about this web site. As cliche as their words may seem, there is wisdom there. And they are telling me what I want to hear right now. They are giving me hope that things will work out for us. I just really need to hear that now, and for it to be real and heart-felt.

Thanks, Stephen, for your comment yesterday. It made me cry but it also comforted me.

It's going to be a hard, hard Christmas.