Facing demons

I'm the worst blogger ever. It seems I only ever come here to piss and moan, like this place is my psychiatrist. So indulge me, cause I sometimes really need it. This job is hard. It's excruciating. Trying not to suck is painful. Trying to fit in is painful.

A few months ago I wrote a (in retrospect ill-considered) comment on a celebrated teacher's blog. Things were said. I was shamed, but not "I need to see my psychiatrist  blog about it"- shamed. Probably more touched than I thought. Apologies were made recently. I hold no grudges but I ended up crying. I obsessively searched the individual's blog for my comments and the replies to find out why the hell it upsets me so. It didn't make sense - the comments weren't so bad. I searched the tweets made about it (I'm unwell, okay?) and when I found them I realized why I had such a negative connotation to this experience. I felt gang-raped all over again. Everybody I follow and consider as such inspirations had something negative to say about me. And one part of me is like "man-up you little barbie-doll, welcome to the real world" and another is like "they don't even know me". I know this sounds self-obsessed and egocentric, but these are parts of me I don't even share with my partner, and unfortunately it needs to go somewhere.

Why don't I blog my lessons? Kids love them. They tell me they are valuable. But to be honest I'm scared shitless. I don't want to be that naked. I thought sharing my opinions via comments is a good first step, but that was just horrible to me. Why do I even care about the opinions of people I don't know, will probably never meet and live heaven knows how many flight hours from me? Why do I even want to comment? It's not like I'm brave enough to put /my/ stuff out there. Why do I have a soft spot for the "weird" kid in class who no-one particularly knows, loves, hates - the one with the "weird" ideas and opinions - the one that gets ganged-up on all the time because they are different or odd? Why does that infuriate me?

In order to be better I need to face my inner demons. They are vast and painful and I really don't think I can do this alone.

Are you kidding me?

I've recently been working on trig with this too cool for school kid. We've gone as far with inquiry as was possible for him, so the lecture ensues. By this time he was interested (don't ask me why) - not "oh, how interesting"-interested, but "sitting on the edge of his chair, scrutinising every single step"-interested. We get to the grand finale, he sees it coming, shouts out the answer like a victorious leprechaun who just found his ever-evasive pot of glittering gold, and I'm like "Ouch, my good ear!", but inside I'm dancing and outside I'm grinning from ear-to-ear.

He looks up at me in amazement and says "Damn, I don't even want to know what geniuses your kids are gonna be." "Are you kidding me?", I retort. "You're mos one of them!"