Relationships

It has definitely been a different year teaching during a “pandemic.”  Our students were so glad to be back in the classroom this fall.  Discipline problems were at an all-time low.  However, students’ personal challenges seemed to surface more this year. 

Although I cannot share specifics on what surfaces in my classroom among my students, I’m a teacher who has a front row seat to their mental health issues.  I am extremely sensitive to these issues because I am a daughter of a mother who has a mental illness.  As a young child, I quickly learned of the stigma that came with her illness.  After some discussions and occurrences with my students this year, the stigma sadly still remains just as strongly as it did during my adolescent years. 

The stigma of mental health issues is harmful because it silences us.  Someone who struggles with mental issues rarely speaks out about them for fear of being ostracized, treated differently, or such information being used against them.  This sharing of information places one under a microscope where certain behaviors done by them might be seen as odd or “crazy,” yet for anyone else doing the very same thing would be seen as quite normal. 

Many families (including mine) that have been affected by mental illness in one way or another have learned through their familial generations that it’s the “family secret” everyone knows yet no one talks about it. We set ourselves apart from that “one” in the family, creating an “us” and “them” mentality when we all battle mental issues.    

An illness of the mind also can be keeping a record of wrongs, overthinking, forming habits, gossiping, gaslighting, inciting factions, needing control, etc. Because of our sin nature, we are all susceptible to these mental traps.  As unhealthy mental patterns are nurtured rather than squashed, they can grow to be quite powerful, holding dominion and mastery over us.  The effects of such mental entrapments are no less destructive to the quality of our life than individuals who have a “medical diagnosis”. 

Like mental illness, addictions can be viewed quite the same.  Although it is easier to explain away the ill behaviors of some because they are addicted to drugs or alcohol, if not for the grace of God, you or I too could be the drunkard or drug addict.  Substance abuse is a temporary escape from one’s mind where the underlying issues may be the mental entanglements of unforgettable shame, regret, and unhealed wounds.  Anyone of us can be caught in a net of condemnation where we replay what feels like an unrecoverable mistake on our part and, with that, “what might actual be” if only the mistake had never happened in the first place.       

Mental health, simply put, is measured by our cope-ability to life’s circumstances.  Because life comes with many tribulations, we constantly are working toward or maintaining balance.  At different junctures in our life, we are either surviving or thriving. Though not so much with ourselves, we undervalue the God-given trait of resilience in others.  We are more prone to judgmental attitudes about one’s former struggle than readily celebrating the victory of one who recovered and overcame.  This is where we fail one another, causing a breakdown in humanity.  

Admittedly, I initially came back to the classroom this fall mostly concerned about student learning gaps.  Certain events realigned my thinking and redirected me back to my purpose— to be present with my students, in tune to the deeper needs in their life, especially at a time in our world where “normal” vaporized as an illusion. 

Even though the 2020-2021 school year was unpredictable from day to day, I am thankful for the classroom setting.  It kept us connected at a time when distance was encouraged.  In our vulnerable state, the classroom served as a place to have honest conversations; our talks diminished some of the social barriers we’ve all hidden behind.  My students realized that as those barriers were broken down, the loneliness and isolation that comes with mental health became manageable and came with benefits: their grades improved; compassion and care for others increased; and the teacher-student relationship was less of a divide, for they witnessed that we are all the same— in need of each other.  With this group, we became friends, and instead of viewing each other as individuals, we became unified. 

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

I once fell in love with a man who was a poet.  His words along with his gaze upon me made me feel so alive.  His words stoked a fire in my heart.  Sometimes I didn’t reciprocate right away.  I wanted to sit in it— bathe in it— for I’d never known anything like it. 

I wondered if I was enough.  I wasn’t a poet like him.  Where I had limitations to express myself, he seemed to have none.  I convinced myself he knew how to love and to feel, and I didn’t.  I tried so hard to write in verse to show my love, but my words failed to convey what my heart felt.  All I could do was try my best and hope that he knew. 

Now I know words fall short, and where words fail, the “knowing” trumps.  Can the grave and its appetite for the dead ever cease?  Can fire be divided into individual flames?  Nor can love be contained and pinned to mere syllables. 

For I see poets in this world who try to bleed out their heart onto pages, unable to exorcise the ghosts of past loves.  They twist, push-pull, and wrangle to squeeze words out, only to extract a drop of what they feel.  It’s like the iceberg effect— 10 percent is revealed where 90 percent remains hidden; the tip-top is only our reaction to the events of love, where underneath is the complex design of anticipation and transformation, which cannot be fully explained.      

If love were chalked down to the mere wealth of words, it sadly would be minimalized and should be utterly scorned. 

I love you needs to be expressed in word, whether poetically written or not; it doesn’t matter.  Say it a lot, but show it more.  Where words fail to be remembered—even the most beautifully penned ones— I can still remember how he made me feel and how I felt about him; that is unshakable and unforgettable.   

Sometimes I still reflect on how my 14 year marriage ended in divorce.  My former husband and I were what I would consider “compatible” and generally happy most of the time.  Most of our marriage was one of peace and respect for each other.  It wasn’t a hostile marriage nor was our divorce; the respect we had for each other was one of loyalty to the very end.  Even now twelve years later if someone asks me about it, I share the truths about us with words of kindness, care, and respect.     

Since I’ve now almost been divorced as long as I was married, I’ve had lots of time to examine and search my own heart over the matter.  Those developments have changed with time.  First I blamed him.  Then I blamed myself.  Next I blamed both of us.  Now I focus on what was my responsibility in the demise of our union.            

I believe the most important aspect is putting myself in my former husband’s shoes and imagining what his answer would be on why it didn’t work for him.  It is a hard truth to face and accept, but if this step is avoided, I potentially run the risk of other failed relationships in the future. 

What would his answer be for why our marriage didn’t last?  I believe it can be contained in these six words:

I just couldn’t make her happy.

With the reflection and realization of this hard truth, a deep pain gnaws in my gut.  Did he ever do things to make me happy?  Without a doubt, YES!  Most of the time he blessed me in our marriage.  Being married in our early 20’s, we still had much room to grow and develop as individuals and as one flesh, something I wasn’t willing to let time, experience, and our pulled energies build into something lasting.  Instead of looking at the strengths of our relationship, I viewed it through the lens of our shortcomings, unable to embrace the fact that with two imperfect people, we would always have an imperfect marriage.  As I continually expressed my frustrations, our marriage suffered, and in that, I fashioned an impassive husband.  

I am a people-watcher and now cannot help but observe the interactions between couples, specifically at restaurants.  I suppose it is because everyone, including myself, is stationary for a while and much can be observed in the one encounter.  At times it’s been painful to watch couples grapple through a conflict because it reminds me of what we must have looked like during our marriage.  Sadly it seems like a rerun of the same scene, just a different couple: The wife seemingly mulls over details with her husband about some upsetting incident.  As I watch the man on the receiving end, his facial expressions and body language tell all!  I’ve been tempted a few times to walk over and give a soft warning, mainly to the woman:          

Be careful with your words.  Be assured, he is taking all of it in, and more than likely he is more upset that he cannot seem to make you happy in this area of dispute. But worst of all, he is holding a lot in for fear of hurting you more and may even feel like a failure as a husband.  He asked you to marry him because he delights in you.  He deserves the same esteem.  It’s easier to pick apart the things that aren’t working in your relationship but be thankful and focus on what is working!  Believe me, no matter how hard things may seem, you don’t want to hinder your relationship and end up where I am today.              

To the men and women out there that have a great spouse— a great life together: Be mindful of your words and actions toward one another; they are like deposits, which can support or stunt the growth of your relationship.  Even the smallest nitpicking over time can have scathing consequences, coupled with deep regret when it’s too late to prevent their effects in our life.  Nurture the relationship with patient grace, and watch it grow into a harvest of enduring love.    

Photo by Cameron Stow on Unsplash

The

doorman’s arm

            appendaged with the open and close

            of the cinema door

                        as bitter winter took its last

bite

at my heeled

ankles.  Wait over there, ma’am, for my

date with tickets had not

arrived yet.  The lobby buzzed of

good

tidings and

            cheers like each bulb sleeved in chandelier

glass.  I peered through the row

of glass doors as the marquee lights

bounced

on shiny

cars turning off 3^rd and 18^th.   You     

            skimmed the red carpet in 

fedora and black-white wingtips.    

Wide-

eyed, I gasped

            while my twitterpated mind forgot

I’d just met you.  Your eyes

took me for a ride as we crossed

red

velvet ropes

and coy convexity of narrow

balcony stairs until

we reached our twin-mating box seats.

House

lights still up, 

we shared favorites: “The Christmas Song” and

“O Holy Night.”  The show

began: Christmas Carols rang free

in

the hall while

our hearts sang the same pitch, accepting

octaves where the sweetest

melody flows without a rest.       

The following is a poem written for my English poetry graduate class. It was based off of a syllabics prompt where we had to construct a poem of eight quintains or five-line stanzas. The syllable count for each quintain is 1, 3, 9, 6, 8, which follows the syllable counts in Marianne Moore’s eight-quintain poem “The Fish.”

Photo taken at the Lyric Theatre December 2018