In January I was recruited by my former teacher to help with her class in their annual play. I quickly assumed the role of director and ended up managing all acting components of the production, which kept me out of bed at least two hours per day five days a week and I believe is a large part of my increased endurance prior to the car accident. Additionally, the kids became My Kids and continue to light up my world as often as I can manage to visit their classroom.I don't know if this makes me egotistical, but suddenly earning the respect of forty children and holding the responsibility of their performance made me understand that I held some significance in the world. I have often felt forgotten and dispensable in the past couple of years; very few people have the capacity of sitting bedside to a convalsecent, or at least that's what I tell myself. But seven year olds don't care if you're sick as long as you love them back. They carried my chairs and picked up my pencils and never needed to know any details, and I felt like a real person.
Somewhere in the middle of doing fairy makeup and memorizing a shortened version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," I started to understand that some semblance of my old self would still exist when all of this was over. I only feel this way when I'm with them, but my physiatrist says that I have to start taking my symptoms out into the world in order to get better. Right now, there is nowhere I would rather be than in their classroom, attempting to explain black holes without algebra.
