Still Stunned

By Erica J. Ringelspaugh

I am breaking open little clot-lets of dirt, little octupusing roots squirming through the spongy soil. My roommate gave me this plant when we were juniors in college, for my 20th birthday. I have finally given up on keeping it alive, after harboring suspicious hope for two of the three years I’ve been faithfully watering it, watching it lose its flowers, its buds, then its leaves, settling in to existence as only a ghost plant, nothing more than a few stalks. I will plant spinach in its pot, recycling with the best of them, leaving the beautiful orchid behind for the more practical vegetable, eating the vegetable with chicken and cheese in my lone tortilla at night. Eating by myself in this small apartment in this city I still don’t know, I can never finish a whole package of spinach before it spoils, turning to a slimy, rancid mess in my refrigerator.

Packing for a trip to Chicago to visit friends this weekend, I notice the number of T-shirts in my drawer that I no longer wear. I cleaned that drawer out when I moved home from student teaching last December, again when I moved to Adams in August, and again I note, “it’s time.” I search my closet again for a more sophisticated top that’s not already heaped in the laundry basket, not quite understanding why I don’t want to slouch back into graphic Ts and oversized jeans this weekend, my college every-day wear.

My mother comes to visit, happy with my apartment that claims a full kitchen and matching baseboards throughout; she has made valances for my curtains, in a burgundy that matches my free couch. The curtains attack me when I try to snap them to the hooks, falling on my nose. I balance on a chair from my new dining set to reach high enough, then stand back to discern that, “they take the living room from ‘college’ to ‘real house.’”

I teach my students during the day, then come home to grade papers with the Gilmore Girls in the background. I prepare lessons where we compare introductions to slides, conclusions to merry-go-rounds, and transitions to swings; where I encourage my freshman to add ‘T and F’ to their writing, the “thoughts and feelings” that make voice, mood, and style in a language they can understand. I ask my AP juniors to analyze bias in President Bush’s speech to guardsmen in Idaho, remarkably similar to a speech he made one time when I was protesting during college.

I love my job. I love my kids. I love my school, my colleagues, and I’m trying to love my lessons, to create lessons my students will love and learn from and remember forever. And I’m having a hard time still living between worlds.

I loved college, too. I have specific memories attached to all those graphic Ts. I cherished that orchid, the first thing I could make stay alive. I cried when I first discovered the university had cut me off from the e-mail account that held written transcripts of so many important events in my life. And I understand that this specific time is important, too. That maybe I’ll cry when Bob the computer guy takes my Adams-Friendship e-mail account away from me. That I know I’ll cry at the end of the year when my high-fiving freshmen leave me for the summer, and my AP kids leave me for college.

And yet, so much of my life right now is waving goodbye to the past and ushering in my future. My future as a teacher, a goal I’ve worked for since I was 2 years old and attending pre-school and looked up at my first teacher, a goal I’m still stunned I’ve accomplished, finally, still turning in circles in my classroom after my students have raced to the bus, their shouts still echoing in my head, just standing there taking in what’s mine.

But then I go home to the apartment that contains no roommates but my cat and a few ghost plants, that is moving from "college decor" to "real house," that holds a wardrobe changing from "sloppy" to"‘teacher clothes," that asks me to be an adult instead of a student.

I’m ready, but I’m not. Any questions?

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Posted November 28, 2005