Week Four: Faces. Writing.

Expectant. Skeptical. Disbelieving. Preoccupied. Distant. Hostile. Eager. Anxious. Worried. Not-good-enough thoughts. Bored. Excited. Interested. Possibility. Exhausted. Tired. Angry. Amused. Silly. Blank. Unreadable. Smiling. Happy. Easygoing. Caring. Concerned. Hopeful.

I look around the room and read these expressions on their faces. It overwhelms me sometimes, to take it all in. To think that I might play a part in their lives--or, worse, that I might not. I stand in front of the room, this person who is supposed to have answers, and I am afraid that the answers that I might give won't be of any use to them. That, like the rules of the English language, the exceptions to the rule will get them. I miss their faces. I miss the way they would light up when I first arrived in a room. I miss the way a student who struggled in the class would wait with anticipation to get their test back, and as I walked around the room, passing out tests, I would sometimes feel their anticipation, too. Their faces are so readable and yet not.

I have written a million times and in a million ways about what it is like to stand in front of that room and see those faces. I've never yet hit on anything that captures what it is really like. Words aren't enough. It is unlike any feeling I've ever had, to walk into that room at the beginning of the semester and know that it is my job to be a steward of sorts, and to feel so afraid that I might not be up to the task.