About things that matter

I miss the feeling of doing something that matters.

This morning, it took me 3 hours to convince myself that getting up, putting on pants and having a coffee still makes sense. Even before sitting up for the first time, my brain starts to replay the same dark thoughts I have been stuck with for the past 18 months, and since this witching blog is also a dystopian diary (because the witch and Dystopia belong together), here we go …

This time has not even been the first time of darkness for me, and I think that might be problem. I remember long times of darkness when I was much younger.
When my parents felt the need to change their lives and we moved from the city into a very conservative small town and I felt like I did not belong at all.
When the changes had not been for the better and my parents got a divorce and I hated having to question where my home would be from now on …
When I became shy, due to having to deal with questions most of the children my age did not have to and kind of lost touch with other people …
But I also remember how things became better, lighter again.
This happened when things gave me reason.
Writing gave me reason.
Writing and reading the tales to my best friend on the phone.
Playing music with friends gave me reason.
Working at the theater.
But most importantly, doing all of these things with the right kind of people. Very soon I also realized that I liked to work with children. As an older teenager, I started voluntarily teaching music and it gave me a lot of reason.
Later, when I was studying linguistics and was constantly questioning myself and what I was doing and if I was good enough, I found my reason again in transferring to become a special education teacher for language and learning disorders. Working with people and with children always gave me the most reason.
I knew that I would never save everyone. I knew that I would not change the system, or stop injustice in the world.
But when I was working with my children, I felt that I was given the chance to make a change for them. In their own biography.
When I was teaching a group of primary school children who all learned German as a second language and we searched the school grounds for a photo motive that would inspire them to write a short story and one of them hugged me afterwards because it had been fun, I knew that I had done something that mattered, if only to them.
Becoming a teacher did not just mean to enjoy the work with the children. I also made friends among the other teachers. I even enjoyed team meetings at 7 AM which mostly meant having coffee and discussing how things were going with the other teachers and social workers.
I felt like I belonged and was doing something good.
It was a safe place for me and my thoughts.
It made the world look brighter.
I also began to work in different kinds of research projects dealing with questions of learning and teaching. After all, knowing how to successfully help children to learn is important for their and all of our future, right?

All of these things stopped last year.

I teach my children mostly online, if I can reach them at all. We always experience such a delay and interruptions in being in touch at all that none of them really bonded with me so far. Even when I see them, I am not allowed to leave my desk, look over their shoulder or even use my old teaching materials I crafted. I for example made memory cards to learn the cases, but we are not allowed to touch the same objects, and my boss sometimes hurries into the room and reminds us of keeping the distance.
Also the research projects are cancelled or are having a really hard time to keep going. I am on the phone for them a few days a week, and it is chaotic. They need children to participate, after all.

I always thought these things mattered and were not disposable. I also see how serious the pandemic is and I am not using my teaching experience of the past 18 months to put this into question at all. I know how necessary this is, and I am fully vaccinated. But it is breaking my heart. Everyday is breaking my heart.
It is breaking my heart having to make this measuring in my head.
What does still matter if you measure it with death?
Not much.
I want to come close and look over the shoulder of an 8 year old boy throwing their pen away in frustration. But is learning multiplication more important than people dying? No. But what kind of future does someone have in this world without learning these things and without understanding what is going on around them?
I hate to make this calculation in my head.
Everyday is breaking my heart.

I have not been in touch with my witch enough, lately.
The reason is that I am finishing my studies at the moment and have to write my thesis. I write about first language acquisition with hearing loss. It is quite interesting, but it reminds me of all the things I have lost. It also reminds me of seeing my friends and spending nights at the library together.

All that is left is me navigating myself through these four walls and trying to avoid questioning why the hell I am still existing without anything that gives me reason.