This isn’t the start. I’m starting part way through a life that always seems to be different to reality. This also isn’t some fantastic epiphany. I just felt I should write it down. Maybe this is an outlet that is right for me at this time.
So let’s start. A brief back story. I’m not going back 27 years. Just two. The day I decided to become a primary school teacher. Oh yes. With a healthy dose of Autism, social awkwardness and misunderstood melancholy that, on occasion, became bouts of intense Euphoria (more commonly known these days as bi-polar).
I have a post-grad qualification that I darent tell you about lest you find out who I am. That would be treacherous. I have spent half my adult life (and all of my career as a teacher) pretending to be, well, the opposite of what I am.
How? I’m still figuring that bit out. It’s not a conscious decision. I learn social cues from watching others. I then mirror back to them (apparently).
Just give me a bit of information about what you want me to do. How you want it to go. What outcome you are expecting. Give me familiarity with the finished product and I will soar. The confidence will shine off of me. Knowledge is power. With knowledge, even the tiniest particle of information to work with, I can figure out how to ‘be’. I can be the best sales person, the best teacher, the best manager. The only way to know my secret? Ask me to do something I have absolutely resolutely no knowledge of and throw me in the deep end.
I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened. Be prepared. My mantra.
Actually. All you have to do to know my secret is talk to me. Listen to what I say and how I say it. It’s obvious. Social normalities baffle me. An mirroring doesn’t work when humans are often fake on the outside. I just mirror back an act that you already know is fake because you are creating it yourself. Then I become untrustworthy.
I like those un-/in- words. I teach the children that it means ‘to not be’. I have been called many things. Unbelievable. Unpredictable. Insecure. Inhumane. Inattentive. Unfeeling.
Yet. Infalable.
That is why I am good at my job. I can keep up the act as long as others are willing to believe it. Teaching is an act. I can keep those 1001 plates spinning without so much as a blink. Away from the act, i am hopeless.
The act is exhausting. Forget the ‘dont talk to me until I’ve had 2 coffees’ response you would get from any reasonable teacher (or any professional really) at 7am. With me, don’t talk to me at 16.30 after a day of being the me I let you see. Don’t let me disappoint you. Whatever you do, don’t expect me to respond to your email/text/phone call after 7pm.. I’ll be in bed with a hot water bottle utterly exhausted from the performance I put on every. Single. Day.
FaerieFalls 