Living with groundlessness

[AntoniaB]

AJ that made me laugh, the part about priest or ax murderer, and I think everything you said is on the money and I will try to focus on this and not my own stupid pining for a person who either no longer exists or who was hiding his true self....

He's a 9th grade science teacher, btw :-)

"God's work" came from this: years ago, when my mom (ever the optimist and a 30 plus year teacher and school principal) would talk with him and me about teaching, and he would get riled up and say to her that HE was doing God's work and she wasn't, as she was a principal who could kick kids out if they were too big a problem as she ran a Catholic school, but since he was the "lowly public school teacher", he had to take them all. I thought it was pretty out there that he'd throw that comment in my face today, seeing that I teach students who get rejected from every other college and we bend over backwards to keep them. AND I'm at a methodist college. Bottom line is that his parents are the real culprits here in this part of his self-esteem. They NEVER respected what he did for a living. They would only say things like, "You have a lotta blacks?" (because they are racist!) His mom used to say that he wasted his looks being a teacher and should have taken his degree and done meteorology so he could be on tv...or, worse yet, be on a soap opera. Yep. That was her goal for him....which is why OW's former Miss DE title probably impresses the heck out of mom...but I digress.

Yeah, he has serious issues of inferiority, and defensiveness, and the whole 9 yards. I do keep telling myself that OW took this lunacy from me. I don't doubt he hides it from her as he hid it from me for so long.

It just stinks to know that you can't help someone find a better life. Look at all the crap I've been through, all he put me through, and I still came out more positive or hopeful.

Funny thing...I had a falling out with a very close girlfriend back in March. I disagreed with her, she disagreed back, I "fronted", she called my bluff, we ceased our friendship.

Yesterday 4 separate things made me think of her. She is also a teacher, but a brand new one fresh out of school. I wrote to her last night and I apologized and I asked if we could patch things up.

We have.

In the course of talking to her, I found that in her new job doing exactly what he does, she has drug addicts, prostitutes, the homeless, in and out of jail for robbery, etc. She is in a much worse district than XH.

Is she complaining saying she's doing "god's work"? Nope. She is trying every day to come up with new stuff, to do whatever good she can. She is oblivious to the administration as she is so focused on the kids.

And you know, what's the first thing she did when we reconciled, but run stuff by me and ask for advice or feedback.

What a contrast!