War Paint

A fellow teacher walks into my room before the students arrive. "What are you up to?" she inquires as I am applying my mascara. "I am applying my war paint." I casually reply. "Ha Ha those kids will drive you nots won't they." she giggles. I just shrug, knowing the war paint is more for me than it is for them.

Everyday we all put on our masks to help us deal with our own internal struggle. My struggle is with happiness. In Colorado, I was genuinely happy. I felt light and giddy and alive. I can count on one hand the number times I have felt alive since departing from there and one is the tears I bitterly shed upon my departure. I did not need my mask in Colorado and now do not live a day without it.

As the bell rings and the students meander in, something kicks in that makes me appear alive and full of energy and I am thankful that my kids pull it out of me. As they leave for the day, I feel the false sense of alive drain from me leaving a hollow shell of discontent behind.

I sleep with this paint on trying to convince myself that if I look happy, I am happy. I do not feel the way I look. I am a phony but my body will not let me lie to myself. The acid reflux is so severe I get dizzy and light headed and struggle to breath and even eat. It reminds me that this did not happen when I was happy.

Something must change. Until then its back to the doctors I go; back to exhaustion and lifelessness outside the classroom; back to the war paint that streams down my face in my runs which get longer and longer the more paint I need to put on. This is what I meant when Mike and I discussed fake over the summer.. this is how it looks, how it feels. Something will change...