Lyme disease is a huge worry this August. Family members and friends have suffered from this disease, which can be serious and debilitating. But I suffer from a different problem.
My teaching nightmares started earlier than usual, during the last week of July. I blame Sara K—she mentioned having them on Facebook, and I was all smug, commenting, “Mine don’t start until August 1!” Clearly her power of suggestion seeped into my subconscious, and the dreams about not having my lesson plan and not finding the classroom lasted for about a week. Travel, sickness, and then planning took precedence, and my anxiety took a different turn. Instead of disturbing my sleep, I saw some physical manifestations. My shoulders and neck started tightening up with increased time at the computer. My office floor, clean for the entire summer, started sprouting stacks of books and multicolored folders brimming with articles and lesson plans from Classes Past.
My dreams were no longer about teaching but about airports and crowded public bathrooms. I would wake up before the alarm, strangely alert, which was completely different from July when I would groan at waking up at 5 a.m. (which you have to do if you are going to get a decent run in before the sun cranked up full blast by 6:30 a.m.). Now it’s comfortably dark at that hour as the days grow shorter. August may not be friendly to teachers, but it is to runners.
The most disturbing indication that I was actually anxious did not manifest in its usual ways: no road rage, no refusal to watch True Blood or Episodes or Weeds because I had to work. Instead, my left eye, or more accurately, my left eyelid, regained its tic. This tic used to only happen rarely, and only in spring, when the pressure of driving all over the state supervising student teachers, completing projects, writing recommendation letters, and other projects gain an urgency that seems more pronounced than in the fall.
I remember exactly when and where this tic started. It was spring of 2008 in the English Department hallway of a Rhode Island high school. I had just observed one of my student teachers for the third time. She had done an excellent job, but we had a prickly relationship. We were talking, and all of the sudden there went my eyelid—pulsing away as if it had a heart of its own. I kept up my side of the conversation, hoping that although I could feel this bizarre, violent motion in such a tiny space, nobody could see it. Instead, the student teacher, not known to be particularly affectionate, or to even like me, gave me a huge hug. I can only think she thought I was going to cry, and then when she hugged me, I almost did. Her act of compassion has always stayed with me, and we kept in touch for a long time afterward. She is a classy and talented young woman.
That tic has served as a physical signal of inner turmoil ever since. And in spite of having a strong first week—collaborating with my one of friends for the first time on one class, recovering from one bad session to a strong second session in another class, with a third class going better than expected—the tic has arrived, months early.
Apparently, it doesn’t matter that I have taught for 17 years straight. It doesn’t matter that I felt ready (syllabi done in advance) and supported (my colleagues amaze me with their words of wisdom). It doesn’t matter that my husband is taking care of the grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning so I don’t have to worry about it. My anxieties were once private, mostly laughable affairs (cue the can’t-find-the-classroom nightmare scenario) but now have become frequent, visible manifestations. Sure, my husband says nobody can see my quivering eyelid unless they are a foot away from me, but when I feel that thing going like a tiny heartbeat when I’m in front of a class, I want to punch myself in the face.
This too shall pass, no doubt. I’ll remember that I actually know what I’m doing (see that remark about 17 years). I’ll get to know my students. I’ll get into a routine of planning and grading. I’ll realize the joys of thoughtful classroom conversations and responses to texts. I’ll quit worrying so much about how I’m coming across and more about how to make this a useful and productive experience for my students.
So if you see me, and my eyelid is twitching, don’t feel like you have to give me a hug. But it might be nice, anyway.
