The message started with "Professor" and in short it was a call for help.
I don't remember going through a lot of questioning about being a lesbian when I was a teen.
But then I don't have many memory of that period. It's all a bit vague and fuzzy. In the middle of the fog there will sometimes be a startlingly precise snapshot of a moment. Some good, but not many.
I don't really know how I came to term with loving women. I thought I was bi for a while.
But I don't remember struggling much about it. I had other more pressing matters that kept me busy enough with dread and despair.
I am one of the lucky ones. Though my coming out wasn't the smoothest, it did not have any long lasting consequences. But I have read, and I have witnessed and I have listened.
So when this kid came out to me, so shy they barely said anything, I tried my best.
I tried to be supportive, and reassuring, and helpful.
But we haven't been at school in weeks, so I hadn't had news from them in weeks.
Until yesterday.
In the evening I got a message for an unknown handle on Discord.
But it started with "Professor" and in short was a call for help.
So I stopped everything I was doing and tried my best.
My teen years were, to put it mildly a long and terrifying trek through hell and school had been the source of a non negligible amount of my problems.
I have been told that I am good at my job, and I think this is why.
I never received any formation on how to teach or how to be a teacher. I learnt on the job.
But I remember being a student. and not a good one at that.
I remember the tiredness, the mood swings, the lack of motivation, the stress, the anxiety.
I remember questioning what I looked like, what I wore, what I said, who were my friends.
I remember wanting to do good but being unable to do anything.
I remember the night spent waiting for sleep, and I remember the nightmares.
I remember the pain from the pit that was gaping in my stomach while I tried not to be too much of a disappointment.
I remember other things that I don't care to put into writing. I am at peace with who I was and what I did but it doesn't mean that I like dwelling on it.
So when I look at my students, all I can think of is:
Dear God, don't let them trudge through hell alone like I did.
Let me make their day just a little bit more bearable. Just a little more interesting. Just a little bit less lonely.
Let me spare just one kid from the hell I lived.
This is why I love my job.
It's terribly paid, very frustrating, incredibly draining. It's stressful and though I easily work 50 hours a week I keep hearing that teachers are all lazy.
But it gives me a sense of purpose.
The message started with "Professor" and in short it was a call for help.
So I answered.
To the best of my abilities.
I said Your health and your safety are what's more important.
I said I am proud of you for looking for help. It isn't easy, but you did, and I am glad for that.
I said I know it is hard and you hurt, but you don't have to be alone. There are people here for you. And I'll be one of them if you need me.
I said I know feeling lost in your own body, in your own mind, in your own identity is terrible and it feels hopeless, but I promise it isn't. I promise you will find yourself and you will find balance and you will be happy in the end. Don't lose hope.
There was a call for help and I tried my best.
If I can make their life just a little less terrifying, then it will have been entirely worth it to keep going when I, so many years ago felt like giving up.
