Mindful eating, aka how I stopped eating my feelings.

Mindfulness is about being present in the moment, focusing on being here, now, and absorbing and enjoying and interacting with your surroundings, instead of worrying about what happened yesterday, or what’s going to happen (or not happen) tomorrow, next week, next year.

Now I could go on and on about mindfulness and how practicing it has helped me recover from a lifetime of binge eating, anorexia and bulimia, but there are people better versed in it than me, so I’ll leave it to them.

I will, however, tell you my biggest takeaway:

The problem isn’t that we eat crap and feel bad. The problem is that we eat crap, feel bad, and are overcome with shame and guilt, which often leads to eating more crap, feeling more shame and guilt, and so on.

I never understood how people could eat crap, feel physically blech, and then get up and live life the next day. I would always let my sluggishness (because let’s be honest, my “crap” is ALWAYS carbs, thus the malaise) compound my shame and guilt. I’d eat more crap. I’d set a date 3 days in the future to stop eating crap, some arbitrary date because “It’s Monday” or “It’s February first” or “It’s 3 months exactly until bikini season.”

The arbitrary start date is a blog rant for another day, but you get what I’m saying.

Then I planned my cheats.

Actually, let’s call them indulgences. I hate the negative connotation of “cheats” and I hate the sound of the word “splurges.”

When someone offered me cupcakes, I wondered, “ Are they worth it? I am going to Friendsgiving this Saturday and I really want to splurge on sweet potato pie with marshmallows on top. Do I really want these cupcakes? Are they that important?”

Then I thought, “I’m going to wait 10 minutes and reevaluate my need for these cupcakes.”

Later that night, someone offered me a drink and I said, “I’ll see how I feel in a little bit,” and I meant it. Then I forgot about it entirely because as it turned out, my body wanted a buttload of seltzer, as it usually does.

What began as a single-minded goal of only indulging when I planned to slowly helped me be more present. I thought about things more. I indulged less frequently. When I indulged, I ate less because I was actually enjoying it, rather than scarfing it down. I noticed when I was full. I ignored this and kept eating, but I stopped before I was uncomfortably full, and definitely before I was Louis CK full.

Suddenly I was a person who could indulge for one meal and get back on track. In the last week, I also became a person who could indulge for one meal that wasn’t planned ahead and get back on track.

I’ve been trying to figure out how it happened. I know it started with my goal of losing weight while still enjoying refined sugar occasionally, but it turned into something bigger, something that I apply most of the time now.

Then it occurred to me: It’s not about carbs, calories or crunches. It’s about being in control and aware of your mind and your emotions. Then you can think over your options carefully, and make an informed decision. Even if it’s a decision that involves far too much bourbon and/or onion rings, it’s a decision you made thoughtfully and mindfully, after considering the consequences.

By making thoughtful choices instead of impulsive ones, you eliminate (or significantly reduce) the shame and guilt. Without that shame and guilt, you can move on without eating crap for the next 5 days. The cycle ends there. Wait. There is no cycle.

You can only do this if you’re fully present in the moment that you’re in.

That is how I took control of my emotions and stopped eating them.

That sentence sounds really strange now that I reread it, but I kind of like it so I’m leaving it.

The weirdest thing is all the mental airspace that’s left now that I’m no longer feeling guilty and ashamed of every time I’m not 100% on point with my nutrition and exercise. In fact, I’m far from it. But I no longer feel awful about a missed workout or eating too many carbs. I just think, “Well, I’ll make healthier choices starting now.”

Sometimes I say things I used to say, like, “Ugh I’m so fat I shouldn’t have eaten that ____,” but I don’t really mean it. I'm not happy with my body right now, but I’m no longer actively shaming myself about it. It’s a body that I have as a result of thousands of tiny decisions I made and DNA, and I realize that it’s going to take a few thousand more tiny decisions to make it into something I’m prouder of. What’s a couple of onion rings in the grand scheme of things?

I’m going to Florida in 16 days and I thought I would be 15 pounds lighter by now, but I’m not. I can still see all the cellulite on my legs. But I’m so much happier that I almost don’t care. I trust the process. I know that I’m fixing my brain and my thighs will follow, and for the first time in my life I realize that my mindset is more important than my body fat percentage, and that, my friends, is huge.

Below are some tips on mindful eating from this website that I found extremely helpful!

How I'm losing weight without starving myself, and building a healthy relationship with food.

So I’m in a really good place right now. I’m eating balanced, healthy meals that make me feel satisfied but not gross. I’m practicing portion control and eating whole foods that I cook myself (mostly). I’m NOT calorie counting (I know that I usually eat around 1400-1600 calories, some days less, some days more, but I track portions and food groups, not calories). Every day I drink a magical chocolate protein shake that tastes like dessert. It keeps me full for hours, gives me so much energy that I’ve cut down on coffee, and really helps with cravings. Plus, I can use it to make guilt-free peanut butter cups.

[It Happened To Me: I found a way to make healthy peanut butter cups that taste BOMB. And I don’t even feel gross the next day, because they’re healthy, because that’s how it works when you eat healthy food all the time…]

And yes, I’m losing weight, but more importantly I’m losing inches, and I’m doing it the right way.

I started the program a few months ago, when I saw my high school friend Lesley posting about it on facebook. I’ve done almost every fad diet there is, so I’ve seen a lot of hopeful facebook posts and been through my share of clickbait rabbit holes.

No seriously, here is a list of all the diets/eating programs I have tried. In parenthesis is the number of times I’ve tried:

Medifast (5x)

Weight Watchers (1x)

Atkins (2x)

South Beach (lost count)

Keto (1x)

Paleo (1x)

Jenny Craig (1x)

HCG diet (only 500 calories a day) (1x)

I have survived on almost nothing. I have survived on diet pills, diet coke and saltines (WHATUP 2002, don’t miss you at all!). I have exercised too frequently for too long or not at all because I’ve been so starved. I’ve been through years of really stressful teaching positions that led me to put on weight (talk to me about cortisol if you doubt that stress can and will affect you metabolically), and do drastic things to get it off.

So believe me when I say that when I saw Lesley’s posts on facebook, I approached them with a healthy degree of skepticism, because I really didn’t think it was possible to have a healthy relationship with food, exercise and your body. I thought I was doomed to spend a life treating my body as something bad that needs to be controlled and kept in line.

Last spring, when I started seeing Lesley’s posts, I was opening the medicine cabinet right when I got into the bathroom so I didn’t have to look at my reflection when I washed my hands. That’s how bad it was.

Then I found the 21 Day Fix. It’s all about clean eating, portion control, 30-minute at-home workouts, and a daily superfood shake that tastes like goddamned dessert (and can be made into peanut butter cups). The 21 Day Fix has brought so much simplicity to my eating and exercise routines.

I never thought I could workout at home because I craved the community my gym provided. But the 21 Day Fix comes with a different style of community. Instead of going to the gym, I belong to a challenge group on Facebook full of people doing the same program as me. They’re all over the country, which is WILD, but so cool. We have tons in common, and no one cares when I post about how my cat tries to interrupt my workouts by farting on my dumbbells, so I’m happy. I love these groups, and the people in them. I think they are what makes the program work as well as it does. They keep me motivated and on track.  

My home gym 

It takes time. I do a meal plan for the week every weekend, and I stick to it about… 80% if I’m honest, but I still eat so much more healthily and save so much money because PORTION CONTROL.

The most important thing about 21-day fix is the focus on having a healthy and positive mindset. I got to the point where I realized that I’m capable of losing weight. I can eat less and exercise more and take pills and cut out whole food groups. I’m great at that. But until I fix what’s happening in my head… I’m just going to gain the weight back. Until I learn to change how I think about food, and how I think about my body, there’s no point in any of it. And that’s what 21-day fix has helped me to do.

I used to look at a huge Snickers bar and think “BAD. BAD FOOD. I’m bad if I eat this. If I eat this, it’s a bad day, and everything else I eat may as well be bad too because the day is a lost cause and I can go back to eating good food and being a good, healthy person tomorrow.”

Now, I look at a huge Snickers bar and I see it for what it is. It’s going to taste amazing, but it’s going to make my blood sugar rise and then drop, leading to me wanting more sugar, and if I eat more, I’ll want more, and I’ll feel sluggish for the whole next day. Some days, I decide that it’s worth it to splurge, and I do, because this program is a lifestyle, not a diet, and sometimes you have to eat a Snickers bar. But I make a decision based on information rather than emotion, and whatever decision I make, I have a group of people to support me because they’ve been there too, because we’re all in this together.

So I’m about to begin this journey where I co-host a fitness and nutrition challenge group with Lesley in October. I’m nervous, but I’m excited. And I’m looking for 5 people to join me in this challenge group. 

So if you’re ready to... 

• change the way you look at your body and food
• feel more comfortable in your own skin
• lose pounds and inches
• build a healthy mindset
• save time and money
• see lots of pictures of my cat trying to work out with me and eat all the great food I make

GET IN TOUCH! It’s a journey that you don’t have to go on alone. Join our crew. You'll love it.

I also started a facebook group around having a more healthy mindset around fitness and nutrition, so if you want to join that, ask and I’ll add you!

If you just want to chat, I love talking about this stuff, so get in touch!

And Lesley, I appreciate you so much. I was going down a really unhealthy path, and your relentless positivity, your constant support, and the 21 Day Fix saved my butt. Thank you.

Email me
Go to my Coach website (although I haven't really updated it yet)
PS: Yes, I made my Beachbody Coach website URL Leahnopants. 

A sample meal I made that's on-plan... These are fajitas, from before I started eating meat again. Replace the tofu with blackened chicken. 

I am dying to play Scattergories WITH GROWN-UPS.

I am dying to play Scattergories.

It’s fun to play the junior version of the game with kids at after school. It’s not quite as fun as the adult version, because you only do one category at a time, but it’s still a very good time. Playing it with a variety of age groups is also great, because on one side of the table are fifth graders valiantly defending “Games” as a point-worthy entry in the category of “Games” (it’s not), and on another side of the table are first graders quietly insisting that “knight” starts with an “n” (it doesn’t, as I’m sure you know), and there I am fuming because they’re all giving me stage 5 judgy face because they think I MADE UP ‘N Sync (I OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T) to get a point in the male vocalists category and even if I didn’t make it up, it clearly would start with an “I” (it should, but I don’t make the 90s boy band rules).

Like I could ever create something as wonderful as a boy band… I’m not GOD, children.

I love Scattergories so much. Every time it comes up, I think of the time a guy friend of mine insisted that one could save up for a duck (are ducks expensive? is that a thing?), or the time I wrote down my boyfriend’s family name for the category “things with balls” (he is one of three boys). Lately, I find my love for Scattergories leaking into other areas of my life. I bring it up at meetings, in the Costco parking lot, and at the doctor’s office. I even find myself thinking of possible categories for a version of the game developed around my life: Reasons why a camper is crying in the shallow end, Moments in my life when I would have benefited from having Veronica Mars around, Songs from the 90s, Pet peeves, Things found in a pilates class, Things that Pashu the cat is terrified of, Possible explanations for why my car smells funny, etc.

I love my students, I do, but it’s getting progressively more difficult to suppress my competitive Scattergories spirit when playing with them. I constantly find myself wanting to shush them for talking before the hourglass is up, and COULD YOU PLEASE STOP USING THE SAME THING FOR TWO SEPARATE LETTERS IN THE SAME CATEGORY? You can’t DO that okay? GOSH. This is serious stuff, okay? And while technically “poop” and “doodoo” are two different words, they mean the same thing, and should not both be used in the category of “things you don’t want to swim in a pool with.” I don’t know if there is a specific mention of this in the directions, because I’ve never read the directions, because one of my roommates (the one who owns Scattergories) is the smartest person on the planet and can basically RECITE the directions. But even if there isn’t a specific ruling against that, YOU DON’T DO IT. It’s like bringing a Happy Meal to Chili’s. There isn’t a law against it, but you just don’t do it because IT’S NOT OK.

And while I love children, and have dedicated my entire career to them, they have this annoying tendency to think that if they haven’t heard of it, it doesn’t exist. If I were playing with my peers, and I wrote down 98 Degrees for the boy band category, even if none of them had heard of it, they would trust me. Although come to think of it, when I DID use that, I didn’t get the point because one of them HAD heard of the band, and knew that the band name was written in numerals instead of letters (I LOVE RULES). Children, there is a whole world out there, full of bands that were famous before you were born, restaurants, brands, foods, animals, books, places, and TONS OF OTHER STUFF YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF. Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean I made it up. I wouldn’t give YOU stage 5 judgy face if you wrote down something I’d never heard of. But just so you know, peloni is not a special kind of pepperoni found only on pizza in France. I don’t know if you made it up, or if you sincerely believe it, but it’s not a thing. PELONI IS NOT A THING.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, will someone play Scattergories with me? All the time? 

No such thing as sin: A Yom Kippur Ramble

Yom Kippur is one of my favorite holidays because I believe in reflection. Any holiday that demands we stop our busy lives and think about the past year - where we went right, wrong, and everywhere in between - gets an A in this teacher's book. As a teacher, I've always worked it into my curriculum. Thinking about choices, whether they are our own or those of the characters we are studying, has always been one of my top priorities. Personally, it's sometimes tough to hold myself to the same expectation because I'm always willing to put myself on the back burner, as I think most teachers are. But regardless of how insane life gets, Yom Kippur forces me to press pause and really, honestly, reflect. 

This past Yom Kippur, as I sat in Friday night services with my father, I had a lot to reflect about. I hate my body, I feel simultaneously overjoyed and horrified that I'm in between full-time teaching jobs, I'm worried about money, I'm not sure I can sit still for the entire service and I wish I were still in 7th grade so it was appropriate for me to take a 20-minute bathroom break to apply flavored lip gloss, did I turn the oven off, etc. I wondered where we go when we die, what my kitten thinks about all day, when I'd have kids. I tried sitting with perfect pilates posture, and lasted about 10 minutes. I should catch up on Grey's Anatomy, write more, eat less, run more, drink less, and in the middle of this I tune back in to hear the Rabbi say:

There is no hebrew word for sin. The closest translation in English is "missing the target." 

The Hebrew word "hatat," however, has a clear concrete meaning to go with its abstract one. In the Book of Judges we read about a band of sharpshooters, so trained and talented that every one of them can sling a stone at a hair and not miss (Judges 20:16). The word in this verse that means "miss," yehetu in Hebrew, clearly has the same root as "hatat." "Sin," in Hebrew, means something like "missing the target."--From this site

MIND BLOWN.

I didn't MESS UP HORRIBLY.

I just missed the target. 

I didn’t RUIN EVERYTHING.

I just missed the target.

I’m not a TERRIBLE PERSON who deserves punishment/needs absolution.

I JUST NEED TO WORK ON MY AIM.

And that’s a lot easier to process than my usual I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON I CAN’T BELIEVE I F-ED UP YET AGAIN I’LL NEVER GET IT RIGHT I SUCK AT EVERYTHING thought spiral.

Thinking about it as missing the target means even as I was doing things I would later regret, I still had that target in mind. It also means that I was standing on the same field as the archery target that had my goals on it, even if I had terrible aim. Maybe I was running in the opposite direction with my bow and arrow. Maybe I was shooting blind. But at least I was in the same general area as the goal. At least I had it in mind. At least I was on the same field.

If sin is 100% wrong, and there is no Hebrew word for it, then nothing I did this past year was 100% wrong. That means every mistake had a purpose and every regret had a reason. Those mistakes and regrets are mine alone, and I’m not trying to avoid taking responsibility for them. But this makes them seem a lot less futile. It gives my mess-ups a purpose, even if that purpose is me realizing how crappy my aim is as I survey a field full of arrows and an empty target (have I killed the metaphor yet? Probably).

So Shana Tova. Regardless of what religion you are a part of, if you are a part of one at all, I hope you take some time to think about how things have been going for you and reflect. Remember, we all miss the target sometimes. Have a good year, and work on your aim.

I'D LOVE YOUR THOUGHTS ON: 
In the last year (or so), which targets did you make? Which ones did you miss? 

Stress Hangover: I WANT MY LIFE BACK

The class I just taught was a disaster. I'm sitting here at my desk, counting the minutes until I can leave for the day and escape to the sweet oblivion of my bed. 39 minutes until crisp sheets, PJ pants, lemon seltzer and Ice-T's sarcastic quips about the latest murder-rapist to terrorize the streets of New York City. 38 minutes until fuzzy socks, cool air, the evening stretched lazily in front of me in that special way that only Thursday evenings before Friday holidays can (Sidenote: Thursday evening is more glorious when there's no work Friday. Fact). 38 minutes until I start my usual weekend dance of trying to shove the stress of the work week out of my head for long enough to enjoy the 2 days off. 37 minutes until I can shut my eyes and try to sleep and probably fail because there's too much in my mind but somehow trying unsuccessfully to sleep beats purposely being awake.

When I started student teaching and grad school, my mom stopped incessantly yelling about my terrible sleep schedule. At first I didn't know how to respond. No one yelled at me to get up at a reasonable hour on Saturday. No one cared if I slept until 4, which I routinely did. No one screamed at me when I was going to be late for teaching. Instead, I woke up to hot coffee being poured into my mouth and a warm "Morning honey!" When I finally confronted her, she said, "Honey, you're working extremely hard. I can't imagine taking on that courseload while teaching all day. If you need to sleep 20 hours a night, by all means do it. In high school, you were just lazy. Now, you deserve those 20 hours." 

I took this to heart and I'm glad I did. It's so easy to feel guilty for the time it takes to recover from teaching, especially in a tough school system with many troubled students. Even the greatest teachers -- you know, the annoying ones who seem to have perfect systems in place for discipline and instruction that promote student accountability, consistency, inquiry, and growth -- come home and sit on the couch for awhile to decompress. Trust me. I've asked them. I'm not saying I'm thrilled about it. I would love to be able to leave work and DO things for the several hours until I go to sleep. I would love to teach summer school if I weren't so destroyed from the school year. I would love to have real hobbies that require regular time commitments and friends I see more than once every other month when I don't bail because I'm too tired or upset. I would love it. But I've come to terms with it. I no longer apologize for my SVU binges, or clicking DECLINE on 99% of the weeknight facebook event invitations that come my way. I'm not happy about it, but I spend enough time feeling guilty about the fact that I could have done this or that better at my job. I'm not going to feel guilty for how I recover from that job. 

But this year has not been typical. Nothing about it has made sense. And somewhere in the last few months I began to wonder if things are getting worse. Somewhere in the last few months I began to think maybe I should replace "well-adjusted" with "in denial" when describing how I deal with all this stress. 

Did I always take things so personally? Did I always get this destroyed? It's hard to remember. This year has been terrible, worse than other years by far, but my reactions have been astronomically more severe. My first year was pretty bad. I taught 7 different classes at one point (non-teachers: I mean I had to prepare 7 different lessons each day). My second year (or was it the third?) I had those 8th graders in the morning that gave me HELL, and then there was the year I had to plan different lessons for each 7th grade class because they were each dysfunctional in completely different ways. Last year was awful, the worst I thought I'd ever deal with, until this year happened. I was upset frequently. I slept a lot. But I wasn't this unhappy this often for this long. Lately it seems like every little thing sets me off, and the panic and anger and pain that set in last for longer.

I used to go weeks without going out on the weekends. I used to sleep 20 hours a day. But somehow I remember it being a choice I made, which implies that I could have made a different one. Last weekend, for the first time in 2 months, I went out on Saturday night. I karaoked with my friends and for awhile, it was actually fun. I didn't drink, because I can't control my emotions sober let alone drunk, but I love being with my friends so I still enjoyed myself. Sort of. Mostly. For awhile. I thought if I looked the part, dressed the part and acted the part, it would be enough. As it turns out, pretending to be okay isn't the same thing as being okay, so I ran out of Hong Kong in Faneuil Hall crying.

There you have it. There's no set of circumstances that could allow me to go out and for ONE NIGHT not fall apart. I can't be normal. It's not an option for me anymore. I'm at home alone every weekend night watching TV and reading because I HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE, unless I want to make crying while sober in crowded bars a habit. 

Remember when you realized you couldn't drink like you used to? It happens to all of us at different times. I was about 25. Losing 30 pounds and being 3 years out of college combined was what did it for me. Suddenly, I could count the times I HADN'T gotten wasted, instead of the times I had. Suddenly, I was hungover until 7 o'clock at night. I started losing Saturdays and Sundays. Eventually I realized why: My tolerance had gone down. My body chemistry had changed. My outlook was the only thing that hadn't shifted. 

That's how work feels. The stress from one tough class leaks into another. The stress from one terrible day is still there the next morning. I run and sleep and box and watch SVU and I still can't get away from it. The stress is like a hangover that never ends. You can reevaluate the way your body handles alcohol, and change your habits accordingly. You can drink more water, drink less beer, get more sleep, and be hungover less frequently. But what can you do if your job is what's making you sick? What do you do if your life is one neverending migraine headache,  your mornings are spent bent over the toilet, you've been sick with one thing or another since October, and your doctors tell you the stress is causing your body's systems to malfunction? What do you do when you panic the second things seem calm because it's so unfamiliar that you're unprepared? What do you do when your body rejects the place you have chosen to do the job you love more than anyone has any right to love a given job? What do you tell the ER doctors when you're throwing up blood for no reason? What do you do when what's wrong with you doesn't show up on blood tests, and there's no medicine to make you better?

Bubble sheets make me want to hurl.

Bubble sheets make me want to hurl.

I’m a smart, flexible thinker. I’m creative, well-read and articulate. When I take the time to research and plan, I am capable of exceptional study skills.

I spent my childhood reading. I was shuttled to every extracurricular and enrichment activity I asked to take part in. My mother corrected my grammar in first grade. I was the second grader who could explain subjunctive tense.

I have all the makings of a good test taker. Usually, I am. But despite all that, bubble sheets make me want to hurl.

You might think a fifth-year teacher in an urban school system would have gained some perspective by now. You might think five years of No Child Left Behind would have calmed me down, lowered my blood pressure, and taught me not to freak out because tests aren’t the most important thing. You might think that five years of confronting the real problems that cause our students’ sub-par standardized test scores -- poverty, violence and apathy – I would know better than to dread tests that I’m not even taking. 

You’d be wrong. Bubble sheets still make the bile rise in my throat.

Every year my seventh graders go through multiple days of standardized tests. Tomorrow, they start the first of three days of ELA testing. My stomach is churning, right on schedule. My seventh graders, on the other hand, could care less. They’re nervous that they don’t know the writing prompt, and about being able to work for so long, but beyond that, they’re fine. As I write this, they’re emailing me to ask if spray-on deodorant is better than roll-on deodorant because I gave them a speech today about how important it is to smell good when you’re going to be sitting in one room with 28 other people for 4 hours.

He's thrilled to try out his new deodorant AND take MCAS!
*Results not typical*

So why aren’t they nauseous like me? I’m not even taking the test.

Seventh graders are a curious species. They are self-conscious to a fault while determined to hide this fact and pretend like they don’t care what other people think of them. They’re moody and volatile; everything is the Best Thing Ever or the Worst Thing in the World, and the tiniest sideways glance can make or break their day. They try on different personality traits as they form their identities, yet still spend a large portion of their time calling each other fake for doing just that. Seventh graders are developmental wild cards – clay malleable and soap scum stubborn. It’s why I love teaching them. Seventh grade is the year when you learn to pick yourself back up on your own, not depending on your parents or friends to do it for you. Seventh grade is both lonely and empowering at the same time, the best and worst and everything in between. Seventh grade is where people are made.

Seventh grade is also awful. Going through it once was enough, and if you’d asked me at the time, I probably would have told you half a school year was more than adequate. But at times like these, I almost miss it, because seventh graders have no idea what they’re up against. 

IRRELEVANT PERSONAL CONNECTION:
In seventh grade, they took us to the New England Aquarium where the woman who was the voice of the Little Mermaid sang for us. She had red hair and was dressed like a total slut. At the time, I was conflicted. Looking back... Ariel was kind of questionable to begin with, so I forgive the woman for her outfit choice. 

They don’t know the role background knowledge plays in any kind of literacy-based test, and how much they’re already missing. They don’t know how much time we spend crunching numbers in meetings, analyzing why five of them got the wrong answer on question 7 but not question 9 which is strange because both questions target the same learning standard (In all likelihood, those five probably got the question wrong because they were upset about something involving Justin Bieber). They don’t know how quickly test scores and grade point averages add up to paint a picture that determines in part what chances they have in life. They don’t know how one rough year can create a knowledge gap that could throw them off for years to come. They don’t know that each day of learning helps them, providing them with skills and strengths that will come in handy.  They don’t know any of it. They’re completely unaware.

I would love to not know any of that sometimes. I would love to not care for a change. I would love to look at all those bubble sheets and feel healthy apprehension instead of stomach-curling nausea. I would love to stop worrying about the sixth grade class that does no homework. I would love to not think about tomorrow before it happens, and do something today without considering how it will affect my tomorrow. I would love to spend an hour doodling INSTEAD of doing what I’m supposed to be doing and not worry about what I’m missing.

Insert some ridiculous jingle sung by Peter Griffin about throwing up in toilets, a jingle that goes on for 90 seconds too long.  

What if that was my life? What if I blew off a professional commitment, and in lieu of discipline, my principal or vice principal CALLED MY MOTHER, then she yelled at me and made me stay in my room until I did what I was supposed to do?

When did this happen? When did I change? I remember making excuses and forging notes in high school. I remember lying to my teachers, my parents, and myself. I remember putting things off until the last minute and then deciding not to do them at all. Then some xylophone music comes on, the picture gets blurry and I’m 10 years in the future with a salary, a lease, a car I paid for, a master’s degree, three teaching licenses, and two sets of good china. I blinked and now I’m a grown-up who does things and cares about things and owns things and thinks about things before doing them and it’s really complicated and hard and sometimes all I want is to be screamed at by my mother and told what’s right.

One time, roughly 2 years ago, I had a panic attack. I was behind on work stuff, I gained 4 pounds overnight, a guy blew me off, there was a dead mouse in the kitchen, I was broke, and on top of that my room was a WRECK. Hysterical, I called my mom. She told me to stop everything and clean my room, because it would help me think straight. I told her I was tired, and she YELLED AT ME. My mother YELLED at me, circa high school/2001 YELLED at me to clean my room. It worked. I calmed down immediately and cleaned my room until I could think straight. It was so nice to relinquish control. It was oddly liberating to be told exactly what to do.

I wish I could take a break from caring and doing and making decisions all the time, but I can’t turn it off. I do my best to compartmentalize, and push it to the back of my brain, but I can’t un-know the things I know. Even in my most mellow moments a part of my brain contemplates whether or not the Incubus song playing in this bar would be an effective way to teach metaphor (ANSWER: It is).

Teaching is not a job I leave at work. It will always come home with me, whether I’m grading papers or not. It will always be on my mind, whether I’m in front of a class or in the ocean or out for a run or watching Law&Order SVU. Learning is a big deal. Supporting seventh graders as they grow into the people they will become is a big deal. Standardized tests, however flawed they may be, are a big deal. What we do in schools –the frustration, the magic, the journey -- IS A BIG DEAL.

I guess that’s why bubble sheets make me sick to my stomach. Standardized tests are a part of something bigger that means everything to me. Teaching means everything to me. My students’ futures mean everything to me. Any test that even attempts to measure that – regardless of its efficacy – is bound to twist my stomach into knots. In my experience, if it matters to me, I feel it in my stomach, whether it’s nausea, anticipation, anxiety, shock, adrenaline, perseverance, pain, or fear. I’ll deal with it, so my students don’t have to. They have enough to deal with just trying to become people. I can only hope they grow up and fill their lives with things they care about so much it twists their stomachs up in knots.

So bring on the bubble sheets, Department of Education. I’ve got my Pepto. Do your worst.

And try to enjoy it, seventh graders. Pretty soon you’ll be real live grown-ups, without the luxury of a mom to ground you, a teacher to discipline you, and a 30-minute detention to repent for your 12-year-old sins. So work hard, but don’t rush to be a grown-up. Spend a good long time picking out the sweatpants you’ll wear for MCAS day (since I told you to dress comfortably), because soon you’ll be real, live people, limited to the 2 pairs of pants you haven’t stress-eaten your way out of fitting into. Pass notes in overly stylized handwriting. Set detailed goals for yourselves that all involve getting to new levels in the latest video games.

Enjoy it. I’ll be over here, holding my stomach.

I hate being a grown-up.

I hate taxes, bills, and the way I have to tip-toe around life for fear my financial situation will collapse even further.

I hate stretch marks, freckles, and the fact that I can no longer have 5 drinks, 2 slices of pizza, and half a bag of Sour Patch Kids with minimal consequences.

I hate being hit on by obnoxious 22 year-old guys, yet somehow, they are magnetically drawn to me. Like mosquitos.

I hate the way the dust never seems to go away completely because by the time I'm finished cleaning one part of the room, new dust has appeared in the part I cleaned five minutes ago.

I hate loans, APR, carbohydrates, and that the only consistent thing I can count on my body to do is become less efficient with age.

I hate that when things make me so angry I could punch through a window, I can't do anything about them because I'm a grown-up, and it's not okay to punish people who double park, cut you off in traffic, cut in at the last second when you've been waiting in the long line of cars for 20 minutes, and are generally incompetent useless fools as you see fit.

I hate being a grown-up.