March 16: Sometimes Nick will offer to do all the work around the house so that I can have time to write. But then he still asks for my help to cook, do the dishes, put away laundry, and walk the dogs. He takes on a little bit more than half the work in a way that is meant to thank me for all the extra work I have had to do since I got forced to live somewhere I don’t want to. Then when I say that he isn’t really doing all the work, he complains that I don’t thank him enough for something he is only doing to balance out our power struggle. He tells me I can’t reasonably expect him to actually do everything, but he makes me do it when he goes on work trips. He doesn’t understand how abandoned I am here.
March 17: It was strange watching people today. Walking the dogs, I walked past little old ladies who were very carefully dressed in outfits that displayed a green blouse or a green headband. Across the street were groups of drunk college students wearing onesies and screaming loud enough that I could hear every word.
March 18: I saw Mr. Josh returning to the school with one of the regular behavioral students. They both had smoothies from Charlie’s. Going off campus to get a treat is one of the prizes behavioral students can save up for. The kid kept kicking Mr. Josh as they went through the gate. Mr. Josh kept suggesting he stop, but laughed the entire time. The kid didn’t take him seriously and continued kicking him until I went into the bungalow and couldn’t see them anymore. The teachers keep wondering why the behavior has gotten so bad this year. They don’t get that the standards for students haven’t gotten harder to achieve. They are at the same minimum effort bar they were two years ago. Returning to the class alone awards them point. But now they are bigger, stronger, and louder with no reason to try harder.
March 19: I spent two hours looking through old notes and documents to find out exactly when I came off Zoloft. I’m just so tired of Nick using it as an excuse to why we are arguing so much. He seems to think I cam off Zoloft before the wedding because that’s when things started to fall apart again. Turns out, I didn’t start weening off of it until months later when we returned from our honeymoon. I started lower dosages in January and was completely off of it in March.
March 20: Room 311 finally broke Teacher Patel. He was in the room a lot during my class yesterday and Miss Karina came in later and they had a weirdly long and quiet talk while I was still there. Before he left, he wrote a long note on the board explaining to his students that he would not be here tomorrow and that he was gone because he is sick, not because he is mad at them. I only found out today that he screamed at them yesterday. Miss Jen could hear him yelling when she was in a different classroom. He made a few kids cry. A few people wonder if he is actually sick or if he was asked to take the next day off.
March 21: The girls were excited for spa day that it wasn’t relaxing at all. They were too excited for every product I brought out that they all immediately fought over it—face masks, nail polish, tea, yoga mats. Even when they finally lay down quietly and I went around putting little slices of cucumbers on their eyes, Briana started screaming because they were slightly chilled.
March 22: Melissa printed out copies of the Girl Power quote booklet and left them in the teacher’s lounge so that everyone could see them. It was nice to have teachers who normally ignore me stop me in the hallway to say how much they liked them. The girls were very confused when the same thing kept happening to them
March 23: Our rental is half of a tiny house away from the main building and past the llamas on the property. The sign describes the llamas as rarely spitting on people and having a high-pitched scream. This has not set me at ease about staying there. The main thing comforting me now if the long line of muddy paw prints leading back and forth on the lone road that leads to this part of the property.
much love,
hedgie
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