The Blue Rooster Lottery
She said to me, "there's just so much going on and more and more I feel like I don't know how to deal with it. It's just harder to handle it all," and that's the precise moment at which he barged in. "Wellijustthinkscienceissoimportanthowwillshepassthetest," Mr. X, we are in a confidential conversation right now. And three minutes hence and so many similar assertions and he leaves but it's all for naught and she no longer has any interest in talking to me, the thin line that was so precarious to begin with. And all I hear screaming reverberating all throughout my brain is GODDAMMIT FUCK YOU, and it's always the adults that make my job stressful and never the kids. Never the kids! And she looks at me like at some level there is a deeper connection and maybe one of the things that I said in the ten minutes prior to our interruption stuck but DAMMIT ALL the time that we get them is so fucking paper thin. I mean, really get them. When they look at you with the eyes that tell you you struck a nerve and it's making sense even though they're too cool to tell you that. That moment exists but it is so absolutely motherfucking fleeting. And so you barge in with your bullshit science study guide and your inability to understand and my complete lack of any type of poker face and I'm sorry that when you leave the room I tell the child that sometimes in life you have to deal with people who have no grip on what matters and so you tell yourself thank God I am not that person
and really I am not sorry.
And this year, all of this newness and forging my own path and how absolutely sad is it that it's the adults that give me sleepless nights and never remotely even anything else. And there is absolutely some magic in life because there are some kids that you can legitimately reach before they become that adult. Sometimes, it is that simple. To be the adult that actually legitimately without an agenda authentically gave a shit. (And your realization at how indescribably depressing it is that anyone could fuck that up. And how frequently it is fucked up.) And so you try to do what you can with what you have.
She looked at me, second day, brave face though I had already spoken with her mother (I would never tell her) and knew the deep cavities of fear and doubt that desired to stake claim. I told her about my first two weeks at OU and how change and newness is ugly and awful and horrid and distasteful until it's not and you start to forge your own path. How sometimes you just muscle through with a blind faith that you are strong enough and ready. How the change makes you more like yourself -- or can, if you let it. She fixated upon the photograph of my twin and said "I'm fine, it's been great so far," but later in the hall when she made it a point to check in and can I please just be a beacon for you in the storm. Your fear will be safe with me. And how I had three hugs before I could make it back to my office at the end of the day, how do they know that? How fragile you can really become. And apropos of nothing, "Ms. J loves me more!" Thank You, for laying this path down before me. Let me, in my bumbling and indelicate manner continue to do Your work making enemies only of those who can handle the ego blow and making allies of the ones who have none and who can do something with what I have to offer. Your love will be safe with me.
and really I am not sorry.
And this year, all of this newness and forging my own path and how absolutely sad is it that it's the adults that give me sleepless nights and never remotely even anything else. And there is absolutely some magic in life because there are some kids that you can legitimately reach before they become that adult. Sometimes, it is that simple. To be the adult that actually legitimately without an agenda authentically gave a shit. (And your realization at how indescribably depressing it is that anyone could fuck that up. And how frequently it is fucked up.) And so you try to do what you can with what you have.
She looked at me, second day, brave face though I had already spoken with her mother (I would never tell her) and knew the deep cavities of fear and doubt that desired to stake claim. I told her about my first two weeks at OU and how change and newness is ugly and awful and horrid and distasteful until it's not and you start to forge your own path. How sometimes you just muscle through with a blind faith that you are strong enough and ready. How the change makes you more like yourself -- or can, if you let it. She fixated upon the photograph of my twin and said "I'm fine, it's been great so far," but later in the hall when she made it a point to check in and can I please just be a beacon for you in the storm. Your fear will be safe with me. And how I had three hugs before I could make it back to my office at the end of the day, how do they know that? How fragile you can really become. And apropos of nothing, "Ms. J loves me more!" Thank You, for laying this path down before me. Let me, in my bumbling and indelicate manner continue to do Your work making enemies only of those who can handle the ego blow and making allies of the ones who have none and who can do something with what I have to offer. Your love will be safe with me.
