Random thoughts of things I may never know:

It’s been almost a year since I ran at top speed, chasing after a student who was escaping the playground when I tripped on concrete. I landed on my nose and left shoulder, and had a pretty good goose egg on my forehead. I know that my left shoulder was dislocated and my nose needed stitches. What I don’t know is if I lost consciousness. The first thing I remember after the fall was blood gushing from somewhere on my face, and I couldn’t really tell from where. I was already propped up on my arms, so I feel like I lost some time, as I have no memory of having to lift my body up to that position. But I can’t be sure.

Nine months later I was in a car accident, which I wrote about previously. I found myself embracing a woman in tears because her grandson died three days before; she thought she had the green light but couldn’t be certain. I thought I had the green light, but I doubted myself. I drive that intersection five days a week, and from the traffic pattern I’ve observed, I am fairly confident that I had the green light. Previously, when I had more doubt about it I was left with a feeling that something very bad was about to happen and the car accident was somehow a precursor. Now that I am more certain, I am more keenly aware of other drivers at intersections; for all I know, I had the green, I was driving safely and I got hit. But I am not 100 percent certain. It’s okay not to know. I suppose a police report may exist, I called once to ask, and I was told to call back when a person in the know was there to answer my question. I haven’t called back.

I don’t know what my mom meant when she said at my father’s funeral “I shouldn’t have kept you away from him all those years.” I thought he was the one who chose to stay away. I don’t even know anymore if those were the words she said, or if I misheard, but I thought she implied somehow that she was involved in a decision that kept him from visiting. At least at some point during his fifteen years of no contact. My therapist said that would be a good question to ask her. As a friend of mine says, “meh.” I think it’s probably just a miscommunication. It seems like a big deal though, right? Like a part of my story changed.

I understand intellectually everything I have to do to be an excellent disciplinarian, yet psychologically there is something that keeps me from being better at classroom management. I don’t deal well with conflict in general, and I think that is where I should start digging to figure this out. I wish I could be a plant right now. Stick my roots in the dirt, water me and watch me grow. I wouldn’t have to worry about things I may never know, or wonder about what could have been. But it would be too difficult to choose just one plant to be, I would never know if I made the right choice.