affection.

I've been wanting to write this post for a long time. It's been heavy on my mind and heart, this self-reflection that I've been processing. This post is going to be a ramble, probably with many grammatical errors, but whatever. I can only hope that whoever reads this can either process it with me or just encourage me.


My students are a challenge.
And I am not a perfect teacher.

Each day is a battle. Teaching and parenting sixteen 4-5 year olds who are always yelling, crying, wanting your attention and your love and your care, when honestly? 

It's a challenge to love them.


These imperfect little beings has been showing me what love and patience truly is, and it frightens me. Because it is through their imperfections and mistakes and mess that they make every day, that I actually see more of who I am, with my own imperfections, and mistakes, and mess that I make every day. Then through those little moments of sudden realizations, I start getting more pieces to this incomplete puzzle of myself.

Biggest thing has been what I call it, my "levels of affection".

Apparently, I have three levels of affection. If I just met you and you make me feel comfortable, for a period of time, you will receive hugs and affectionate/encouraging words from me. Maybe some personal stories.

Then we will proceed to the second level.
This is where it gets all tricky.

After you "pass" the first level, I automatically start building up a wall again, and the reasoning behind that is I know I have shown/shared some personal things with you and now I'm scared. I'm scared of what you think of me now and if I can still trust you with more. And all this will result in a sudden drawback of the hugs and affections. It's here where majority of my relationships tend to come to an awkward stage or it's not even a relationship anymore.

It's here where I destroy a lot of my relationships.


Third level is where, of course, the "wall" has come down because I ended up trusting in you completely and I am not scared of being vulnerable in front of you anymore. Affectionate words and physical touches will still be rare though, because I just think they're not needed anymore. But if after all this happened and somehow, you destroyed my trust in you, the "wall" comes up again and majority of the time, it will stay there forever.



And here is where I would like to say sorry to those that I've lost.


There are some relationships that I've been trying to mend for years simply because of this "wall". This stupid, stupid, wall. There are many who has put in effort in trying to mend our relationship, but I can't. I just can't. My own stubbornness and fear of getting hurt again has been shutting out every possibility of rebuilding anything that's been lost during the second and third level.

And this is what my students have been teaching me.

I have definitely hurt them before, by yelling at them when they have done nothing wrong or when my own patience have just ran out. They show you their little hearts are broken by the one person they need affection from through their unending stream of tears and wailing, and then you break them even more by turning your back to them.

Yet?

I still hear "I love you"s. I still get hugs. I still get at least one drawing a day with a little "I drew this for you, Ms. C!" and them running towards you wanting your attention.

It is so easy to be loved by a child and to love like a child.




When did my heart get so complicated?