On Broken Hearts

            

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          I suppose one of the many reasons why I became a teacher is because I am a rather messed up person. Teaching allows me to tap into all aspects of my “craziness.” It is the only profession I can think of wherein one wears several hats: actor, nurse, surrogate mother, singer, slave driver, director, cleaning lady, cheer leader, comedian, accountant, dancer, librarian, athlete, the list goes on and on!

           Teaching allows me to indulge in the “wannabe” scholar within as well as the nurturing feminine heart all girls possess.   Teaching gives me both the routine that I find comfort in, and the excitement and spontaneity that I crave at times.

            And this week has been one emotional roller coaster ride, to say the least! From Monday’s overload of cuteness with the Little Ms./Mr. Intrams, to Tuesday’s action-packed back-to-back intramural games, to Wednesday’s mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes, to Thursday’s heartbreak and Friday’s reconciliation… my heart felt like a yo-yo and feels rather exhausted at week’s end.

            And yes, my heart needs quite a bit of “me” time to heal its most recent crack. You see, it’s every teacher’s nightmare to discover that their student, whom they have known and loved for many years, is the complete opposite of what they thought they were. And it’s especially painful to accept, and very difficult to continue loving the student through what Maria Montessori calls “the eyes of faith.”

             Teilhard de Chardin once said, “I had come to regard the world as radically and incurably corrupt. Consequently I had allowed the fire to die down in my heart.” I am struggling not to let the same thing happen to me, although I admit that there was a black time in the not-so-distant past, a low ebb in my own life, that I HAD let the fire die, that the only thing that kept me going was the joy that I found being surrounded by so many pure hearts whose innocence revived the flame burning low in me.

              And I know that there are some people who would say that the way to deal with all of this is to shield one’s self from all emotion, to stop feeling too deeply, to put an end to all ties of affection, of friendship between one and others who may, one day, break one’s heart with betrayal. That it would be so much easier to simply STOP CARING, and “grow up,” and be cynical and call it maturity, being so “wise about the ways of the big bad world.”

            And now this recent heart ache borne out of a broken perception…but now, now I am older and wiser. Now I know that the answer to all the brokenness we see around us, all the events that threaten to disillusion us, is truly to keep on loving. For, in the words of St. Augustine, “Who can be good, if not made so by loving?”

             And of course, there’s no heart ache that can’t be fixed with a good, old-fashioned sing-and-play of Handel’s immortal aria, “He Shall Feed His Flock / Come Unto Him.” ;) And if there's no piano around, a pint of vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookies inside would suffice.