It feels like I’m in a vortex, a wind tunnel where I can’t see, or hear, or feel. My wrongful reassignment, my expulsion from my home, my former classroom, happened about a year ago, and it still hurts.. There is no ‘getting over’ this, and some may believe it extreme, but I don’t. And I still have to get up and grin and bear it for the sake of the students I face every day.. What breaks the pain? Interacting with them, sharing the same space alongside them. It’s as if sharing energy with the young can energize, and therefore, instead of hiding away in suburbia, a public high school in New York City seems to be my safe space.
It is painful to not walk into the safe space I created on the 7th floor, then the 4th floor at 225 West 24th street in Chelsea. I did everything right. I know I did everything right, which is what adds confusion to this mess. How can people be this cruel?
Writing my pain on a screen helps but not completely.
The late great Catherine O’Hara once said, ‘You have to say it out loud, to get rid of the pain.’ I will, one day.
Rosa Isabel Chavez 