Friend For Rent

We have new friends across the street. They don't know that they are my friends yet, but soon enough, they will know it. A young couple has moved into the house across the street. They drive 4 door vehicles. They don't come out of their house. They moved in during Memorial Day weekend. They must have jobs because they bought a house. This is all I know about my new friends. I plan on going over to meet them, bringing a basket of goodies. I hope they don't decide to move out because the kids on our street are so annoying. But back to the point here...

This is the first potential friendship in Worcester that I can see. I'd like to meet them and become friends. I envision myself text messaging the girl and asking if she wants to watch Glee at my house tonight. If she wants to have some wine out on the porch and Matt will light us a fire. 

I'm really not sure if I can do this. Not that it's actually a reality yet, but I am trying to imagine it. I'm trying to picture not driving down River St., not passing signs for Harvard Square. It would really mean leaving Boston for me. I've been connected to that city since I was 19 years old and sometimes it is the only place that feels like home. I certainly don't feel home at my parents' house. The actual structure of my house feels like home, but nothing about the surroundings. I love how I can get lost all day in Cambridge and I'm never truly lost. For one, I can always give Tracy a quick call to set me right, but more often than not I find my own way just fine. I know how to get around Somerville, Brighton, Cambridge and enough of Brookline. I can go to the airport and back without any problems. For me, all of this is monumental. I wouldn't even get on the city bus and go a few stops until I'd been living in the city for 2 years. I was afraid to walk places and whenever I got lost I'd immediately burst into tears. I absolutely LOVE being able to get around and know where I'm going. I think its less about not being lost and more about having a sense of belonging and ownership. Such a comfort. 

I'm sure someday I'll have that sense here. Maybe it would even be hard to leave one day. It's really all about the people I meet. It's not that I can find my way around Brighton with ease, it's that down every main street is a memory. Every short cut I know is one I learned on a drive with someone who meant something to me. It's the same in every town I know. I drive every road in Worcester sitting alongside Matt or by myself. He is plenty for me, but he isn't enough. Girlfriends are so valuable. I miss the talking, the singing along to girly songs, the long conversations over a restaurant table. I miss the opportunity to sit on a couch and share a laugh over the way someone shouted out directions in the car last time we road tripped it, over the funny face someone made just then, over the ridiculous comment. I miss being able to call a girlfriend and say, "What are you doing right now? Let's....." I miss having the chance to change my plans and say to myself, "Watching sports is not what I'm doing tonight." And then a simple phone call fixes that situation. I miss being with someone that isn't essential to my life plan so that I can discuss and analyze my life's plans with them. I just miss having girlfriends. I knew I'd see everyone less when I moved out here. I knew it would be a new kind of lonely for me. It doesn't get easier though. In some way, it becomes more difficult to settle into living with Matt, into this house and have no existence of that other part of my life. 

When everything is finally so settled and sweet, it almost feels wrong to miss anyone. But I do. I look forward to the day when I know some people here and I have another group of people that I couldn't imagine leaving. Just as I have now in Cambridge. Difficult as it may be when the time comes, it makes it worth it to have people so important you don't want to let go of them. 

I wrote this a few weeks ago.

May 12, 2011 

I’d love to talk a teacher who has made it. Someone who has managed to have a whole career in teaching and not gotten their heart broken. Mine hurts all the time, there have been so many moments throughout the year where I’ve fought off tears around these little people. They are so helpless and vulnerable to whatever happens in their world. It is just crushing to me. They arrive with dirty feet, dirty bodies, stained clothes that smell, they act like wild children because they’ve never had anyone set a boundary, show them what is ok and what is not. 

I feel their pain when they wrap their skinny arms around my neck and nuzzle their noses against my shoulder. I feel all their sleepless nights, I hear all the yelling in their houses, see all the violence, hear the sound of police sirens. I smell the smoke and see the bleary eyes of the adults around them. I feel the hunger pains in their bellies and the uncomfortable fullness you feel when your main food is a frozen pizza. My eyes are sore with their restlessness from not sleeping, from all the disturbing noise, from not having their own bed. 

The hardest part for me is that once they leave my classroom door for the last time, I will never see them again. I put all of my soul into these children and then a date in June passes and our time is over. I’ll never be able to offer comfort, love or a simple hug again. I can’t play songs for them and dance, making them giggle. I can’t praise their efforts with crayons and paper. I can’t help to guide them away from patterns that won’t help them, guide them away from their distrust and show them that not all of us are unreliable. 

All I can really do is control how I feel about all of it. All I can really do is find peace inside of myself to deal with it all, to process and let go. That task right now, seems so insurmountable. Its enough to battle my own brain, but now adding all of this additional pain, it just becomes too much. Sometimes I think I’m just not cut out for this job. That I’m too sensitive, that maybe I’m making a big deal out of things that aren’t so bad. That maybe I’m showing a weaker side of myself every day, that I am not strong enough. Maybe not strong at all. Maybe its not even the tough lives of these kids, maybe its the way I lead mine that makes being surrounded by them so difficult. Maybe its all the times I’ve had my heart broken before. It could just be inherently weak now, it no longer knows how to beat through the adversity. I cry at Glee every single week. When the gay kid gets beat up, when the average girl gets abandoned for the pretty girl. I cry when the dad gives an honest speech to his son, guiding him exactly how a parent should. I cry at TV commercials, watching a wedding, hearing a story about someone else who is having trouble. I cry just thinking. This all started when I began this job, instead of the years building a tough shell around me I have become a big, blob of compassion. I almost can’t hear other people tell me about what is wrong in their lives because then I bring it inside of me, wrap it up warmly and hold it there. There is almost nothing left of me. 

At the end of the day I am exhausted. I want to do nothing but sit and stare at the television. I have begun to abandon all the shows I used to enjoy, like Grey’s Anatomy because I can’t handle watching the dramas unfold. Instead I watch The Real Housewives because there is nothing real about them. 

Tonight I rediscovered the album “Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie” by Alanis Morissette. Two songs that I’ve been listening on repeat as I’ve written this: That I Would Be Good and Thank U. 

That I would be good

That I would be good even if I did nothing

That I would be good even if I got a thumbs down 

That I would be good if I got and stayed sick 

That I would be good even if I gained ten pounds 

That I would be fine even if I went bankrupt 

That I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth

That I would be great if I was no longer queen 

That I would be grand if I was not all knowing 

That I would be loved even when I numb myself 

That I would be good even when I am overwhelmed 

That I would be loved even when I was fuming 

That I would be good even if I was clinging 

That I would be good even if I lost sanity 

That I would be good whether with or without you 

After all, isn’t this the message of what we all truly want? Aren’t we happiest if we know that despite everything and nothing that we are, we are OK?