Other Kids

I used to work sixty to seventy hours a week.  It was no big deal.  I liked working.

I liked being in the building before everyone else.  Schools, even alternative schools that rent out three floors of a mid-town office building when the roof of their 19th-century schoolhouse caves in, are places of incredible promise at 6:30 am.  The floors are clean and the coffee is fresh.  Yesterday’s papers are graded and today’s lesson plans haven’t yet failed to deliver all you hoped they would.

I liked being there in the afternoon too.  There is less promise after four pm, but there is the buzz of a day well-spent.  Talking to teachers about what worked, about which students drive everyone crazy, and about what you’re gonna try differently tomorrow. Playing cards with kids who never seem to want to leave.  Straightening out the desks and sitting down with old coffee to plan for the next day.

I hadn’t thought about that rhythm for a long-time.  But with the boys in California, I fell right back into it.  I got a lot done.  I had a good week, and I never once felt guilty for not being home.

The boys are finally coming back tonight, and when I spoke to them on the phone from the airport I started crying.  Not because I was going to lose my “freedom” to spend so much time at work.  But because the promise and the buzz I feel at home with them is so much more powerful than it ever was at work.

Sometimes I wish that weren’t the case, that I could give as much to the young people with whom I work as I can to my sons.  Maybe others can do it better.  What do you think? Does it ever feel as good to put it all out there for other kids as it does for your own?  And does that matter?