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It’s August. The dreams have started again. I am in a classroom filled with students I can’t see. My vision is gone. I pretend everything is just fine. I am trying to hold a soul-centered writing circle in an auditorium with hundreds of people who won’t stop interrupting each other. I have left all my teaching materials at home. No one is listening.

When I was in my twenties, working at daycare, I’d wake up my then boyfriend in the middle of the night and hand him imaginary toddlers to change. The next job at a bookstore had me scanning books in my dreams. Then came teaching and the myriad of nightmares where I had to pretend I knew what I was doing under impossible circumstances.

I often wonder if my own teachers found out I was a teacher, what they’d think, and if they even remember me.

I was the second grader who cheated on her spelling test because no matter how much she studied, she couldn’t spell, the sixth grader who made fake nails out of Elmer’s glue when she couldn’t memorize math facts, the high schooler who spent most classes writing notes to friends, or with her head down on the desk while 90s grunge softly played from a discman.

I was rarely a problem, which allowed me to become invisible.

There were a few teachers who saw me. An earth science teacher once slipped me a note folded in a square that read, “Is this how I get your attention?”

An art teacher created work studies so I could spend most of my junior and senior years in her room.

My high school AP English teacher didn’t force me to speak in a discussion class with just five other students. Instead, she and I conversed through my writing.

When I decided to pursue a secondary English teaching license at twenty-five, a family member raised concerns. Was I capable? Smart enough?

I wasn’t. Not in the sense they were speaking of. My spelling? Atrocious. Commas splice—what was that? Participle phrase: who cared.

What was I instead? Tired of working at jobs where, just like in school, I watched the clock tick my life away.

And, after a tarot card reading (a story for another time), I was

Determined.

Determined to see the girl in the back of the classroom quiet, confused, giving up, too anxious to ask for help or try and get an answer wrong.

Willing.

Willing to learn along with my students and admit when I didn’t know how to spell a word or diagram a sentence or the list goes on.

Kind.

Always kind. No one was invisible or stupid.

I didn’t go into teaching because I was an expert in English. Far from it. Instead, I went in with the idea that if I could help one Kelly or any number of my friends who dropped out, failed, or got in trouble because they didn’t learn quietly sitting at a desk all day, maybe they wouldn’t have to go through thirteen years of school watching the clock and wishing their days away.

In August, when the nightmares come, dream-self never gives up. She keeps trying to help her students.

Year 23 begins. I’m here, imperfect and relying on spell check, ready to learn, still trying.

This post can also be found on Musings from Hideaway Hollow, my Substack blog.