I attempt to eat quite healthily
It doesn’t always work.
The body acts quite stealthily
And some unseen issues lerk.
I take myself off to the Doc
To get poked and prodded
Four blood tests later and and what a knock,
My thyroid’s fine, the hormone is working
I am getting enough sun
But in a grand and humorous gesture
Iron’s down, I’m quite anemic.
Previously, I revamped my diet
To incorporate more fish.
So how do I get my daily iron – a whopping 18mg per day
When I need to eat lots of fish?
“Wholegrain cereal,” my doc suggests
“Just don’t have it with dairy.”
“Add some liver – oh 200g per day is quite a lot.”
Yep – Liver my not so favorite offal
Just might cause a diet reshuffle to topple.
You see – us women of child rearing age are well and truly stuffed.
Unless we sit down and eat duck liver pate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There is almost no humane way to eat our required daily iron.
I had a meeting the other day
Whose sole purpose was to pave the way
To set the date for another one
Agenda to be decided when the next was done.
I live in fear
Of being Me
Of letting myself be
Who I want to be.
I live my life
Through others rules
I cannot do
What I want to do.
I cannot teach
How I want to teach
I cannot speak my mind.
None of this is about anyone else
People do not censor me
I am allowed to dress my way
I am allowed to say what I want to say.
I cannot do these things I want
It is an internal failing.
So strong I hate to displease
That I end up displeasing me.
Every time I start a plan
I plan to improve my fitness
This time I’ll be better at it.
I won’t do this or fall for fads
I’ll simply change my diet,
Add a bit of exercise
An extra peice of fruit
No more will I buy fresh veges
And throw them out – past their prime
They won’t last that long because I will eat them all for dinner.
This must be my hundreth Day One
But I could always be lying
I’ve started fitness plans before
And they usually last for a week or more
Before they fall through the floor.
This time, I promise myself
With a lot less motivation
This time is the last first day of the rest of my life
This time I stick right too it.
That feeling after the tenterhooks
That feeling of complete depression
The one that saps the energy
The one that drains
The one that makes all thoughts so hard
That is the feeling.
You work so hard
You bust your guts
You fight for others constantly
You make mistakes
You try your best
And then when you can do no more
You are way past your limit
You give up, disappointed
You did not do what you set out to do
But you give in to the disappointment
That is the feeling of the let down
Knowing that the outcome
Stays the same regardless.
There is a bridge
On my way home
And it’s where I leave my thoughts
The bad and not so good ones.
You see I have taught for many a year
In tough schools that no one’s heard of.
I’ve taught the rough, the hungry and homeless
I’ve taught the ones with nothing.
And when the stories get to much I give myself a talking
“Leave it at the bridge.”
Sometimes it is not about the kids.
But about the adults I work with
I always take them at face value
I do not see deceit in words or in their actions.
Thus today I am somewhat disappointed
And tonight I struggle to leave it at the bridge.
I wonder how long I have left in me
To be on the go
To talk constantly
To put myself out there
Out of my comfort zone
Constantly forcing myself to grow
Constantly forcing a challenge.
I wonder how long
I can keep going
How long
How many more years
How many more job descriptions
I wonder how long
Til what I do is enough
I am tired and exhausted
And it’s only the start of Term 2
This teaching gig is getting kind of tough.
I bust my guts
Day in day out
And seem to fight the undefeatable
I am tired and exhausted
It’s not yet 7pm
I could curl up before dinner
And let the tireness win.
The days seem to repeat
An endless cycle of the same
And I know that seems quite strange
Teaching changes day to day
I turn up at 7ish am
And rush relentlessly
Even if I stop for lunch, even if I take a pee
I rush, I rush, I rush some more
Until I flee exhausted.
I return home nothing left in the bank
To turn around and do it all again.
The leap to study is quite daunting
For those who have not done it before.
Give up your income
Give up your job
Spend 4 years not working much at all
Give up your weekends
Reading peer reviewed articles
Try not to sleep through another lecture.
Jump through this hoop
Jump through another
Breathe a big sigh of relief
Holidays – Yeah
One year passes
Then another and another
Oh crap it’s the final year
At the end of this year – your plan might not pan out
What will you do?
What will you do?
The questions swim around and around
The fears rise, the nerves, the unknown
The search for suitable jobs to apply.
Here’s one, here’s another, and another and another.
Surely someone will want you.
As I sit here on a morning
Before the day has really hit
I am peaceful but I’m sad
Thinking of the kids I’ve missed.
I know I cannot do it all
That I can only reach a few
But I think of the students
Who flew on courses unprotected
To fly out of the school
Suspended yet again
Who we knew of the hardships
But what were we do do?
Teachers cannot control the world
We only have the classroom,
Playground maybe, lunchroom too
We cannot do much about homelife.
And when a child is so wrapped up
In the crap that happens there
To battle through the concrete walls
The re-enforced steel plating
We can but chip, and chip away
Providing what we hope
Are positives and a bit of light
But something more we cannot do
The wall is tall and deep and thick
The lining just as wicked
A child locked up inside their mind
My hammer and chissle are defeated.
