I’ve heard and dealt with and been the recipient of some of the worst sentences ever. Probably the big one that I still haven’t heard (and please God, let this not happen) is being told by a physician that I, my Beloved, or my children have a terminal diagnosis. Beyond that, like all people around the Earth, I’ve heard a lot that I wish I never had.

But the one sentence that can accelerate my heart rate and start my imagining of the world apocalypse is any version of “We need to talk.”

Such as:

“We’re going to talk later.”

“See me.”

That vaccuum of information, the idea that someone is upset with me and I really have no idea why is enough to curdle my stomach and start the terror. Right now, I’m doing various and sundry Vagus nerve stimulations to get my body to stop panicking. And it sure as hell is not working.

I’m a people pleaser. Problem number one when my career is in public education.

I’m also feeling rather over-whelmed by varying circumstances. Problem number two when my career is in public education.

I also like to set excruciatingly high standards for myself which has a tendency to focus on the idea of pleasing people. Which is a massive problem when my career is in public education.

Soft hearts can make for good teachers. Students are not merely vessels into whom I pour knowlege and attempt to build critical thinking skills. Like all people, students enter my classroom carrying the weight of home. Friends. Family. Enemies. The bully down the hall who just made fun of their fill in the blank.

On top of that my colleagues are also individuals who enter the building tugging on various facial expressions or shouldering or re-shouldering their own weights, burdens, or feather weighted lives.

And navigating those invisible burdens can be like dodging a rainfall of tiny marbles. Take a step and the precarious next moment can mean a tumble which can have a massive domino effect. Or not massive. Because I like to over-inflate things too when I’m anxious because someone said that “we’re going to talk about this later.”

I slip scurry through these days. All while forcing my heart rate to stay normal and my anxiety easy so that my sternum won’t feel like it’s about to pop. And having that extra wee bit of “we need to talk” does not help.

One of my favorite principals ever once gave me a “see-me” note. On Friday. And I had a fabulous weekend becuase the note had a smiley face on it. I knew that whatever we needed to talk about was not that big of a deal or that I had not done anything wrong.

From that individual I learned the art of “We need to talk, nothing bad.” Everytime I need to talk to my children, I use that phrase. They still get anxious. But as twenty something year old adults, they have recognized the value of “nothing bad.”

Maybe that’s what I’m looking for. The smiley faces. The “nothing bad’s.” Because the inspiration for this blog just met with me and they had valid concerns…but they needed to just give that small indication that nothing was wrong.

Or, maybe, I just need (yes, I do need to) to have more faith in myself. Trust my instincts a little more and not find the end of the world in the simplicity of “we need to talk.”

But it’s still the worst sentence ever.