I'm Not As Cool As I Thought

I woke up at 4 am last night with a start. Relief hit me as I realized it was just a nightmare; there weren’t hordes of teenagers running through my parents’ house, smashing things. My best students weren’t hiding in the cupboards, terrified. Just a nightmare.

And yet, the nightmare disappointed me. As my little sister pointed out, it broke the “you have nothing to fear but fear itself” line, because clearly, somewhere deep in my subconscious, I’m afraid. That fear terrifies me. Being completely unafraid is one of the best defenses a person can have. Students who see this year that I am absolutely unafraid of their misbehavior soon cease to pursue it. But my uncertainty about Monday has bred an anxiety that can cause its own justification.

Kennedy has nothing on Hemingway.

I lay awake, wondering if my nightmare meant that students were even then running wild through the campus, hurting each other and destroying our school. As Jake Barnes notes, it’s awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing. I wrote out the students’ tests for this week, a few lesson plans, and eventually, I let Henry James comfort me to sleep. This morning I awoke groggy and vaguely uncertain of myself, moving through my day with weak motions. My hope is that Monday, and my students, will refresh my stamina, and allow me to roll out the last five days before break with pep.