Page 13 of Grin and Bear It

I loved teaching so much. Things seemed to just come together when my life was focussed on them. All the chatter and bullshit in my head dropped away and I was able to make connections, to really make a difference. I knew my content, knew how to help struggling kids find success, and those who were already awesome, excel. I loved talking to parents, even the tough ones, because if you could start the conversation where they needed it to be, on the positive aspects of their child, you could usually find ways of working together in the direction that was going to create the best outcome for the kid. But as I stared into space again, lost in my thoughts, the stuff I’d really been trying to avoid rose up. The events of earlier today, and what it all meant.

I’d nearly lost it all today due to one dumb misunderstanding. I knew the twins were just lashing out, making a target out of me because they felt safe to do so, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. And it didn’t mean that just because I could intellectually understand that their actions were a trauma response because they were grieving, I didn’t feel it as a personal attack, like a knife to the chest.

I’d had so many amazing discussions in class with the twins before all of this. One time the boys had asked their grandfather for permission to bring their great-grandfather’s medals in, that he’d earned while serving in the Pacific. The look of pride on their faces, as they haltingly told the story of what their forebear had achieved in the protection of US territories as well as Australia, was the kind of immediate, personal thing that appealed to kids, and kept them keen while we sorted through all the names and dates. History was actually about people’s lives, I’d told the class more than once, and the twins had made that real.

To my mind, I should’ve been immune to any kind of student bullshit. But invading my privacy, deliberately going looking for ammunition to use against me, that didn’t feel like teenage pique. It felt like something pre-planned, calculated, and that’s what hit at the heart of me.

I dropped my head back against the couch and sighed, looking up but not finding any answers. Shutting my eyes tightly together I tried to block out the negativity. But my hand shook as I rested the can on my leg.

Working with teenagers was tough. I’d been warned that every day of my practicums before I became a qualified teacher, as well as most days afterwards. Some of the older permanent staff dealt with it via apathy, others dug deep and fought the good fight each day, and some were like me, wanting, hoping to make a difference and not sure they were.

No, Iwassure. I knew I had an impact. Then an image of the twins’ smirking faces resurfaced.

I shoved aside the sensible voice, getting to the much deeper, darker and more insidious one that lurked within.

No, the truth of the matter was that I was the one who’d failed. The twins were in Meg’s class and Steve’s and Kate’s and they hadn’t pulled any of this bullshit with them.

Just with me.

The chorus of Taylor Swift’s song, ‘Anti Hero’, started to play in my head then and I shook my head slowly. But before I could get any further with pursuing the train of thought of howIwas the problem, my phone rang.

My eyes flew open almost in shock, to see it on the coffee table in front of me. I just stared at it, wide-eyed and unblinking. My brain felt like it was sloshing around in my skull, but as I reached out to answer it, I saw who it was. Mum. I tapped on the screen as a feeling swelled up in me of wanting to run to my mother and have her wrap my arms around me, as I had when I was a child.

“Eleanor?” As I picked up the phone, the way she said my name, part irritation, part fear, killed that desire cold. “Eleanor! What is this bloody phone…? Eleanor, answer the phone, it’s your mother.”

“Hi Mum,” I said, lifting my can of G&T and pressing it against my suddenly too-hot forehead.

“You sound odd. Are you alright? You haven’t got another one of those colds, have you? You need to take your echinacea—”

“I’m fine, Mum.”

Of course, from the tone of my voice it would have been obvious to most people that I was anything but, and no one got anything past Erica Jennings.

“You don’t sound fine,” she harrumphed. “You don’t sound fine at all. What’s happened this time?”

The world-weary tone in her voice cut me deeper than she meant, I was willing to bet. It made it sound as if she felt she’d been here too many times before. And I guess she had. I’d been a messy child who grew into a messy teen, then a messy adult and there was nothing Mum hated worse than chaos and disorganisation. She had worked long and hard to keep everything shipshape, especially after Dad died, so my inability to do the same was a constant source of concern and confusion for her.

“Nothing.” There was a little growl in my voice at that, which I hated, but it was a necessary evil. I didn’t like channelling a petulant teen, but Mum was a perfumed steamroller, ready to ride over everyone and everything if she had a mind to. And I knew from years of experience that the only way to prevent that was to stop her in her tracks. “I’m just tired.” I drained the last of my drink and opened another can, taking a quiet sip from it. “We’ve got reports due—”

“They overwork you at that job,” she snapped. “Have you working too long at night. Lack of sleep doesn’t help your weight, you know. I sent you that article—”

It was one about the link between sleep and appetite.

“Yep, you did,” I replied. “It’s fine. This is all part of teaching.”

“And what are you drinking? Not soft drink, I hope. All that high fructose corn syrup…”

We didn’t use a lot of that in Australia, but Mum got all her hot takes from the news outlets, many of them American, and took them all as gospel. I set the phone back down on the table as she lectured, switching it to speaker phone as I took another sip.

“Mum—”

“You need a well-rounded diet, Eleanor, with no pesticides and more greens. Jane at the gym has this amazing recipe for green goddess smoothies—”

“Mum—”

“She lost ten kilos in two weeks—”

“Mum!”

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