End of the year

 

Wow, after a shit show of a year I have survived the 2022-2023 school year.  I have tried not to be sad.  I have tried to brush things off as no big deal but there were a lot of things that were a really big deal.  There were a lot of things that were done; that were said or not said that were a knife through my heart.  There are things that I don't even have words for.  I was treated like crap a huge part of the year.  Things just kept getting pied on and there was no asking no explanation.  Just because a person can handle something doesn't mean that we pile it on until they break.  I feel like this year broke me. it is going to take some time to recover, and love what I do again.  

I hated being teacher of the year.  It was not an honor, it was not something special.  There was no celebration for me,  there was no anything and I was more than a little heartbroken.  This is supposed to be something special,  it was announced as a quick staff meeting,  I got a crown with tags on it, a squishy ball, Walmart Band-Aids, and wiki sticks.  There was no thought that went into that.  I heard the comment when I was leaving wow 35 percent of teachers choose you.  And there was not another work spoken or anything special.  There were no flowers or celebrations,  my family was not involved.  Everything felt like an afterthought.  I think how things went is always going to hurt.  The dinner was nice the people that I wanted were there,  the people that made a difference in the year for me were there.  At the same time the people who should have been there were not,  and that was tough.  As a teacher of the year your supposed to be celebrated yet for me there was the ever present question what did I do wrong.  I think it will take some time to get over.  

All year I was thrown the hardest students with little to no support. I did it most of the time and by the time that I asked for help I was already drowning. I saw such success in my student first semester.  I was exhausted with no lunch or planning all first semester but the  progress and how I saw him grow was so very worth it.  I am lucky I had the support of the behavior specialist.  He was the only reason I survived first semester.  There was no breather,  once he was in the correct placement,  two more were thrown on me and I was the odd man out when I asked for help.  I was hit punched kicked and jumped on daily and nothing was a big deal.  Even when we were given, an emergency para to help,  no help was sent my way and thing never changed.  We talk about trauma informed care for students and this year the trauma informed care for teachers was non-inexistent.  I was triggered badly and that didn't seem to matter.  People said things like well you are a special education teacher.  Yes I am and I would like to teach not get the shit beat out of me and my room destroyed daily. No one saw the seriousness of what was going on and I was greatly impacted in such negative ways. I was not supported and each time I would reach out, there were no solutions.  I feel like there was very little teaching going on, this year.  So many of my teaching tools were destroyed and my class was basically in the hall.  I was not supported or treated kindly.  I was often yelled at and given little to no support.  As a SPED teacher you have to work as a team to be successful.  That didn't happen. 

I cried more tears alone in my empty class than I would ever like to admit. This will be a year that I remember for the support I had with Bobby and the successes that my student had.  This is a year that will forever be a pain in my heart. This is a year that made me want to leave teaching completely. This was the first year ever that if I had a husband, I would have come home and said I can't go back there I am giving my notice.  That just isn't ok.  A job should not suck the life out of you and this year it did. My thoughts, and feelings and pleas for help meant nothing.  

I am glad that it is over and I am looking forward to love what I do again next year.   

I heart your heart. 

Girl with her heart on a shelf

 This 13 year old that is me is so very hard to process and understand. 

 I feel like I am failing her because she still feels very far away.  

I feel like I am failing her because, I can't stop the pictures, the nightmares or the bruises.

It's my fault that she isn't healing.

I look at her and see gross and disgusting, I see what was done to her.

I feel their hands, I smell their cologne, I see their bodies and hear their laughter.

There is a huge disconnect between us, I see her as something other than.

That innocent 13-year-old girl that wanted to belong.

And that girl under 5 men, who I see and think how did she survive? 

Sometimes, I often wonder even Why? 

A girl with broken parts that are way beyond repair.

I want to feel good feelings for her.  I want to believe in the things I want to be true. 

Somewhere in my heart I know that she is worthy, innocent and lovable. I have to believe that.

I have to know that somewhere, right? Can she be those things? Still?

I don't see innocent, lovable or worthy.

I truly want to believe she is all those things; I want to believe those things with every breathe. 

 but I don't.  

I don't know how anyone can ever love her, care for the damaged parts of her.

I do not believe there is a single person that can love her completely unconditionally .

I don't know if she can ever not feel the depth of what she has experienced. 

I don't know if she will be able to let the tears flow,

 I feel them but can't let them fall

somehow crying feels weak for her and she has to be strong. 

She is the girl with her heart on a shelf. She puts it away because she knows 

no one can give her the things that she needs, because the unworthiness she feels 

steals all the air in a room

She is the girl terrified to come close and terrified to stay where she is. 

So her heart is on a shelf to stay safe and pretend that every breathe doesn't hurt.

I heart your heart 

What if it isn't possible for all of me

 I am terrified. No, I am beyond terrified that, that 13-year-old girl will never fully heal. I am afraid that she is too damaged, too broken and that there are parts and pieces of her that will never fully come back to life.  I have always said that about her.  I believe there are parts of her that will forever and always be far away in a place that is unreachable.  I am not saying that she won't heal at all, or that she will never find a sense of peace.  I do believe that someday she will find those things.  Bit I am also very aware that some things she experienced are things that changed her to her core, on a soul level really.  There are things that happened to her that there are no words for.  Things so beyond the human experience that her world went black; there is no healing from that.  I hope someday she can find words and find her voice.  I know that she will come far and learn to thrive, but there is a piece an ever so small piece of her that is very aware of the damage that has been done and is realistic that there are some things that are just different for her.  There are things in this world that are always going to ware on her heart and be different for her. There are things in this world that she can never unsee, unexperience or ever forget.  And there is nothing in the world that she wants to forget more. 

We were talking about it last Wednesday, all about the different stitches that are needed for different wounds.  There are tiny steri strips, internal stitches, outside stitches, staples and there are wounds that need any combination of those.  Then there are also those wounds that require a drain.  A drain in addition to all the stitches and staples to drain all the things that a person can't see that are hurting them.  Some wounds need all of the above, some need a few sutures, some just need some steri strips to fully recover and in time all that remains is a scar. Some wounds need all of the above and more.  Sometimes there are deep ever present wounds that need those drains as a lifeline to the world.  Still there are other wounds that even a drain, even many drains could never fully heal and recover.  I write that and know it is such a negative thought, knowing that a part of you will never fully heal and recover. Sometimes I think there will be no scar because the wound is still a gaping oozy mess. In the same breath there is another thought that maybe it's just reality settling in that there are just things that happen to a person that are so gross and disgusting, that are so appalling that no drain, not even thousands of them are near enough to clear the ever-present terror of the things that are unspeakable.   I work so hard to heal, I work so hard to fit in a world that doesn't understand the pictures that I live with. I do my best to function with pictures running in my head like a movie full of so much terrible awfulness.  I hear a song and I am back there.  I feel their hands and am back in the exact moment; it happens more than I would ever want to admit.  I have come a long way but goodness after all this time, I think it should not be this bad. I have made progress, I have fought to be where I am but there are some things that still eat away at my heart and soul and make sleeping, eating and living sometimes really really hard.  

I found this poem and its perfect for how 13-year -old feels :

Tears of the Ocean by Heather Lea 

Don't touch me, it hurts; I'm too broken

Don't try to come too close to me

Inside I am dry from tears I have shed

And the from the scars I can't let you see

Don't try, I'm not worth the wanting - 

Just leave I don't want a fuss. 

There is nothing inside, all my feelings have died,

my heart just withered to dust.

Like a cactus, I'll face stormy deserts- ,

No need for the waters of the soul.

I'm dry defeated, battered and bruised

bitter, dejected and cold

Don't touch me I don't want to hurt you,

My prickles they sting when I feel.

Just leave me alone in my desert.

From this pain I can never heal.

This is what it is like.  Even after all the work that I have done, there are pieces that are too dark.  There are pieces of my story that are too hard to see.  I will keep trying to bring that sweet girl out, until she is next to me and believes in herself and the people around her.  I also know that she has experienced a darkness that many don't live through.  Maybe the kindest thing to do is to place the drains in the deepest darkest places and be ever so gentle with her; letting her know that I am always here and when she is ready or willing and able, I am here.  My biggest hope is that someday she will trust me and the good people around her to be rid of the darkest moments that are in her bones. A place where the nightmares are less and don't cause bruises.  A place where the pictures don't play on repeat; and an understanding that she isn't the intense all-encompassing gross and disgusting that she believes herself to be with her whole heart and soul.  I have hope for her, but I am also well aware of the damage done.  I am scared to hope for something that may never be.  

I heart your heart . 

I will not become small for anyone

 

My entire life I have made myself small to satisfy other people.  I have made myself small to make other people happy.  I have sacrificed, myself and my thoughts and my beliefs all for other people.  I have done what others wanted me to do and kept my thoughts to myself. I hope that finally finally things are changing and I will not make myself small for anyone to feel better about themselves.  If a person needs me small to succeed, then that is not a person that I want to be around in the first place. 

It's strange when a  person starts to stick up for themselves, most people truly aren't sure what to do or how to respond.  That has happened at work.  I am done getting no support and being expected to just take care of things. I am done being treated like I am less than. I am so glad that I made the choice to go to a different campus,  and do things different.  I know that if I stayed, nothing would change, and I am not going to kill myself for a job that would very easily replace me and not think twice.  

It is abaolutly disgusting to me that someone can be made the bad guy when they stick up for themselves.  When they follow the rules and they are the one that is looked down upon.  But they are the ones that were hurt.  They are the one that are seen as the troublemaker, and the one that is stirring the pot.  I will never understand that. 

I will not become small for people ever again.  I am done I have worked harder than hard to get where I am , and I will not let someone's lack of understanding, or lack of care make me something that I am not.  This has kind of been a theme in my life people wanting me to be small, not make a mess, not make too much noise, not cause a commotion.  Yet, it seems that is exactly what I have always done.  I am going to continue to be the same unique, different, me only I refuse to shrink doing the things that I am most proud of.  

I see where I am today and I think I literally should not be here. The things that have happened in my life are things that have stopped a persons breathe forever.  For whatever reason I had a fight and there was no way that I was going to let any of those people win.  Today, I have my own home I am a teacher and I am going to grad school. After all those things, I am still here finding my happily ever after.  One day,   one day I am going to look back and think wow Callahan you did and those feelings of making myself small will be so distant, that they won't even be a thought anymore.  

I will be so happy when i can sit in my successes as easily as I sit in my failures. 

Someday.  

I heart your heart . 

The person that it would take

 

I am just sitting here on a Sunday, playing the latest fallout boy, there is some opera thing on TV, not a fan really.  There are dishes to be washed in the sink laundry to be separated.  I am reading this really awesome book; and I am trying to figure out the order that all of these things need to be completed in so I can get back to that book.  And this crazy thought comes in my head , do you realize the kind of person that it would take to date you ?  Do you realize the person that it would take to love you, and care for your heart. 

I can promise I don't have a clue where this came from, this thought about someone caring for me and loving me and being my person. More so lately, there is this thought I don't want to grow old alone, I don't want to be by myself anymore. I even found, myself asking my kids their plans because grad school starts for me and I am thinking about what is next. I want to sit on the couch and have deep conversations about things that matter. I want someone to laugh at my stupid comments about things and thoughts in my head and smile. I want to talk about the things on the news and how we can do our part to make things better. I want someone to say its ok your heart hurts today; lets get up and enjoy outside, let's go to the zoo, let's go see some ducks.  Let's take a picnic and go somewhere new.  At the same time there are those thoughts that destroy any thought of one day not being alone.  There is this reality that come on Callahan why in the world would anyone ever want to be your person spending their time with you.  I wonder all the time why anyone would ever choose me. Why in the world would anyone want to take that on. In comes that constant thought that I am a burden, a mess, a pest.  Why would anyone want to have to deal with me.  How could anyone love me and all my parts and pieces.  Some of them are sharp, and some are covered by band aids that may often need replacing.  Why would anyone willingly sign up for that? Why would anyone want to care for wounds that they didn't create that I have and are just a part of who I am. 

I have enough baggage for a million lifetimes, there are things I will forever be sad about.  There are things that are in my heart that I don't know how to explain to anyone but can tell you just all the ways that I am affected. There are days when I am not good at all, when my heart is heavy and my thoughts replay the past.  Not on purpose, but that is how I am wired.  There are times you have to know that you can't touch me. He would have to know never to sneak up on me and scaring me for fun would be a deal breaker. And for me sex is something that I worry about what if I can't give a man what he needs what if, I cringe and have flashbacks and cry. Somewhere in my head the things that happened to me were sex, why would that ever be something that I want.  What if there are times that I cry and I don't know why but still need him there just to be safe and hold me.   Sex is a huge struggle for me, what I know is violence, it is what I have known my entire life and that has challenges, I have never imagined or experienced.  I can not even fathom someone looking at me and thinking, I am pretty or anything close to that.  There are more things about a partner that I can't even begin to imagine because there has never been someone that wanted me because of the person I am. I can honestly say that I wouldn't know where to begin to make a relationship work and be all that I would need to be.  

I hate when people say well there is someone out there for everyone.  I kind of shrug my shoulders and turn away.  For me boyfriends and dream weddings were things that were meant for the pretty girls, the put together, smart and funny girls.  Once in high school, we had to put together our wedding, I admit it was amazing, I loved every second of it.  I found the most amazing dress and flowers and of course I had found the most amazing guy, But boyfriend and girlfriend is something that I have no experience with. I have always felt less than other girls and that is something that I don't ever remember not having.  

As I heal, as I continue to learn about myself and the things that I want in life.  I want a forever, I want a happily ever after.  I remember someone told me once that there were no fairy tales and maybe they were right.  But I am sure to many my fairy tale is something that so many others take for granted. My fairy tale is a kind gentle man that will love me even on my hard days.  Even on the days when I am everything unlovable.  

To the man that is out there and perfect just for me,  I hope that you are gentle and kind.  I hope that you will gently touch my face and remind me that I am everything special. I will need a lot of reassurance,  but know that I love with my whole heart.  I love little notes that let me know I am loved, I need kindness, I need patience.  I need a man who can appreciate my dancing in the kitchen, and my mad car singing skills.  I want you to sing with me and pretend that there isn't a care in the world. I need a man that can understand I love hard and fast.  I am loyal to those who care for my heart and just want the same.  I promise to share the little jokes and thoughts in my head and I hope that those things make you smile and remind you why you stay and why you can't imagine living your life any other way.  I hope that you have a smile that lights up the room, and you go out of your way to help others. I hope you have an open heart and are able to step in for my children. They have never had a father figure and having someone step in for them is something not to be taken lightly.  I hope you have a love for nature and whales and understand the love that I have for them.  I hope you can love me even on those days when loving myself is the furthest thing from my mind.  I hope that every day you remind me just how worthwhile and special that I am.  I hope that you can include and make me a part of the things that you love.  I hope you don't mind questions because I have millions upon millions of them just waiting to be asked for the right person.  I hope that you help that woman in the parking lot with heavy groceries, I hope you see that person struggling to get something from the top shelf and step in with out a thought to help.  I hope you like to do things around the house, and make things look beautiful.  I hope you have a love for life and enjoy the little things.  I hope you notice the smallest birds and the brightest rainbows. I forever and always hope that you have a kindness that just emits from your soul.  I am scared, I am not sure that I am ready but know that on good days, when I feel strong, I do hope for you.  I hope that we can grow old together and never imagine what life was like before we met. 

I heart your heart

Its Back

 

Yes it's back. Gross and disgusting has come back with a vengeance and I truly thought it was gone. I call it; "it" but what is that. It is that huge mass of every thought, experience and feeling all mixed up into that one day, with me against 5 men.  It is all the people who knew afterward who stared at me and made comments, the people who made me believe that I was something worthless and did something terribly wrong. The "it" of Gross and Disgusting is the pictures that play in my head, still looking for something that I could have done different, the nightmares still trying to come up with a way out, to get away and be safe. I just wanted to be free from the hell that I was in.  This Gross and Disgusting is a huge ball of tangled mess that lies, right on that 13-year-old girls' heart because she doesn't know where to begin.  She doesn't want to understand the things that were done to her, and she doesn't understand why no one ever stepped up to help. 

Today I can look at her and try not to automatically think she is Gross and Disgusting, but its there; I feel it. I see a scared and pained girl that wanted nothing more than to be loved and cared for.  At the same time there are parts and pieces that I struggle with being able to separate. I don't think, no I know there was no way that she could even comprehend some of the things that went on that day.  There is no way for a sane person to understand the hell that was lived through, and the terror that still lives in her bones. The level of Gross and Disgusting that was experienced is something that no shower no matter how long could ever make a person clean; ever again. 

I am grateful for the parts of this day that I can't remember.  Because if things were so horrid, that the world went black; I am sure that those are things I could not live with.  I remember enough, and I know that 13 year old remembers more than me and then there is just the darkness, the kind of darkness that no human anywhere should ever have to experience. I don't understand the things that were done, the things that happened, the things that I can still see, hear, smell, taste and feel.  After all of this time there are just things that I am not sure are ever going to go away. 

I am stuck trying to give rhyme and reason to the things that there is no explaining or putting into any kind of understanding.  How does a person come to terms with something, that is life altering.  There are days that I want to scream at the world every little piece that is held in my heart and soul and there are days that I want to curl up in a ball and just pretend that I don't have a single terrible memory.  And there are other days I feel so lost, because I have been trying to figure this out for such a long time and there just isn't any kind of resolution. There are days that I am grateful that I survived and there are days that I wish I didn't.  There are days that Gross and Disgusting makes me feel worthless, and alone.  There are days that the gross and Disgusting oozes from every cell, and I just have to pretend that I am fine. 

This thing called Gross and Disgusting literally has a life of its own. It keeps me safe, it keeps me alone, somehow it is a guarantee that nothing like this will ever happen to me again, if I just keep it close enough and prove that things were this bad it will mean something. Gross and Disgusting has to mean something.  It's filled with shame, embarrassment and an extreme need to hide.  I am learning that Maybe just maybe even if I can add a little light at a time slowly ever so slowly, this is something that can go away forever. I keep trying I keep fighting that someday I will find the words that I need to put these words to rest. Someday, they wont feel so heavy, and they won't feel like the end of the world. 

I heart your heart.