I Don't Want Your Gun

February is a hard month all around: dreary, gray and soul-crushing.  It’s not anything and yet it is everything.  The shortest month that feels like the longest month.  February is hard enough by itself, but February watching children get murdered and parents cry and teachers die and the world go crazy is too much.

I’ve been caught in a quagmire of feeling everything and nothing.  I am also guilty of being caught up in me, my life, and my troubles that I block out those of the world around me.  I heard about the Parkland shooting but found it was almost 24 hours later that I saw all the footage, read all the words and I cried.  I cried for those kids, those adults and this messed-up world.  And I thought about my door at school that doesn’t even lock half the time.  And I thought again about those teachers and could easily see one of my people being the heroes that they were that day.  But you can’t think too much about any of those things or you can’t get up and get dressed and go into school the next day.  And you have to go to school the next day because you promised someone you would read over a paper or you know that one kid in second period hasn’t eaten yet and you need to be with your people and know that they are feeling what you are feeling too.

And you get really angry watching people argue about who the problem lies with instead of everyone just saying ENOUGH.  And you heart hurts when you hug your kids and listen as they cry and say how terrible this is and all you can say is that you know.  We know.  We have messed up this world and people are buying guns and killing you at school but politicians are offering thoughts and prayers, so check that box.  And your heart is aching and your brain cannot make sense of what it is coming in and you are numb.  You see the students of Parkland standing up and yelling ENOUGH and you have hope.  It slashes through the blanket of bitter despair you have wrapped yourself in and you breathe a little better.  You see students at your own school become activated by these students and you feel proud.  You read letters they have written to these young survivors and you feel encouraged.

You go to meetings and hear what you should do, what you should tell kids, where to put them in a lockdown and you are still thinking that your door doesn’t always lock.  You hear all the other things you are still supposed to be doing and you think, okay, I can do all this.  I can encourage this one to stay in school, I can get all my grades in, I can remember to fill out that form for my review, I can do all the testing and make sure kids know about the weird schedule on Monday and get the writing samples in from kids who rarely come to class.  We can do all that. 

We do all of that, so I will ask that people stop telling the world that teachers need to be armed.  Your kids are telling me in class that I should have a gun.  I don’t even wear my keys on a lanyard because the weight of them feels like a yoke around my neck at the end of the day; I cannot imagine what the weight of a gun would feel like.  I am a teacher, I teach.  I feed children, counsel them, laugh with them and encourage them.  I don’t shoot them.