A couple of years ago, my heart broke a bit and, at times, still seeps. Don’t ask. Just know that I just keep pushing forward.

But for a while, I didn’t. I huddled. In a very tight, dim space with a moist floor and spiders on the wall. And I tucked my knees into my chest and held onto the angles of my legs and pressed my aching heart into my ribs and breathed and breathed and breathed.

Pain exists. It lives so deep within us and steals the air we breathe to survive and grows. It swallows up the tender, pink-new-flesh parts of our scars and inhabits our most sacred spaces. And just as we think that the pain has passed, we learn that it has merely shifted.

I have tried to live with my pain for the last bunch of years and have eased into a quiet truce. It lives with me. Sleeps in the curled up corners and angles of my body when I coil on my right side with my hands tucked under my pillow. Sometimes, I sit down under a shady tree and talk to it. It curls up in my lap and cries, picking at the frayed threads of my shirt, squeezing down on my fingers until my knuckles crack. Other times, it roars in my face, screams profanities at me, and hurls my prized books at the walls. And then, it deflates back into its honeycombed hexagon cell. Slips the wax covering back over its space and waits. Lives. Sleeps.

I try to leave Pain at the house, maybe curled up with the dogs on the couch, when I go to work. I draw lines in the sand, tape duct tape to the floor, scratch out a separation of life and work. Life is at home. Work is at school. Put on a good game face, tuck Pain and whatever else is happening into the farthest recesses of my mind, and push forward. The students need me. The grammar gods need me. My colleagues might need me. My checkbook definitely needs me.

Sometimes (a lot of times, if I’m being honest), Pain sneaks into the backseat and slinks into the school building, riding the coattails of my shadow or tucked in my daughter’s galaxy lunch bag that I now carry. I’ll be in the publications lab, working with my newspaper students when Pain clambers up the four-legged stool I never sit on and perches gleefully next to me, swinging its spindly legs, giving me its chipped tooth grin.

It likes to mess with deadlines. It loves to help me forget what student is completing what project so that I over-assign and over-tax my newspaper staffers. It relishes reminding me of my lack of experience which shifts me into the thrilling joy of imposter syndrome. And it really, really, really loves throwing the memories of ALL of my mistakes into my face. Oh. Yeah. I just love feeling like a fool.

Newspaper class has been a negotiation period with myself. I know what I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing. I read and study and learn as much as I can. Only to find another mountain of knowledge waiting for me. Everything is going great with deadlines being met. Until today when I realized I had forgotten that I had taken two students off their articles that I didn’t realize were going into the flipbook and were not replaced and…two other students missed their deadlines. And what’s an attribution?

And then today happens. The seniors are leaving. Some of whom I have worked with since the beginning. And today I received gifts. Books. Cards. Coffee cups (very important).

And I read articles, their senior-send-offs. Their farewells to high school and to childhood. And to newspaper.

The newspaper class has been an exhausting and wonderful class that was not an easy transition for the students or me. Pain had a wonderful time roaring into existence during those turbulent days. And, no, the class was not Pain’s birth moment. That is another story. For another day. Maybe a day that is not on any calendar.

My first year with newspaper was humbling. At times, humiliating. And then, exhilarating. And the second year was humbling. And, for several days, humiliating. And joyful and exhilarating and turbulent and wonderful. I questioned myself. I questioned what I was doing and thought about leaving and considered resigning my job as newspaper teacher. But God wasn’t done with me.

So I stuck it out and this year happened. And it was humbling And, at time, humiliating. And then exhilarating and joyful and amazing and wonderful. I learned and learned and learned so much. I tried new things and ran into the wall a couple of times because I was doing too much at once. But I grit my teeth and leaned on my students and shoved Pain into a knapsack and kept pushing forward. And I thought about leaving. And then a student told me how much he valued my determination and persistence and love of the class and the curriculum and my passion for the class and the curriculum. And my mental resignation letter went into the trash pile. And Pain settled a little easier across my shoulders and tucked down and went to sleep.

I read a senior-send off that ended with saying good-bye to me. I realized that the years of hard work and the challenges and the “learning moments” were so worth it. I read and edited it while sitting in my classroom full of students. And I didn’t cry. But I felt the tears brimming and I rubbed them away and smiled. Under the desk, Pain shifted, snored a little loudly, and then curled up on its right side and tucked its hands under its head and fell into a deeper sleep.

I am proud of my students. I am proud of how we persevered. Even more, I am grateful for my students, for the seniors who gave me opportunities and trusted me and trusted themselves. I keep seeing the mantra “You go, girl!” And so I raise those words to my graduating students. Go. Conquer. Be victorious. Push forward.

And thank you. Love you. Mean it.