Just Because You're Paranoid...

If you haven't already, many of you will be questioning my sanity after this post.  I tend to lean toward worry.  I can't help it, it's in my genes.  I don't let it spoil my day or keep me from doing things, but worry wiggles its way into my subconscious much of the time.  Most of the time I try to harness it into positive avenues.  If I can see a hole in the plans being made, it is helpful to bring them to light and correct them before things fall apart...right?  Or maybe I am just a butt-in-ski.  We'll let the history books determine that.

When we are leaving the house I am usually the one who runs around checking to see if the windows are shut, the doors are locked, the stove is off, the lights are off, the dog is secured in his area, the dragon has been fed...you get the idea.  I have not slipped into turning the lights on and off thirteen times (but I can understand it at times).  I generally have no problem going through my day and have even awakened to a car door that was left unlocked, a garage door that was open, and even a key left in a lock, without having a mild to moderate sized seizure.  One time the problem arises is when we are all in the van and Sylvia asks, "Did you lock the door?"  I know full well that the door has been locked.  Rare is the day when I leave without checking.  But if she asks, I have to go check.  That's not too bad, right?  Even if I have to drive around the block to do it?  I don't think I need therapy just yet.  (but I almost cried when I heard they were canceling Monk) 

In my classroom it helps me to think ahead for planning.  When I am thinking, 'what will the kids who finish early do?' I don't consider it worry.  When I think, 'I wonder if someone left their milk carton open in their cubby?'  Worry.  But there is also another recently unfounded worry that rears its ugly head nearly every day.  Are you ready?  OK, true confession time...

I worry that one of my kindergarteners is hiding behind the bathroom door waiting to surprise me when I go to the restroom.

The first step is admitting it to yourself.  I feel better now.

This has never really been an issue before I started teaching the little five year olds.  I could have gone my entire life without worrying about kids hiding in the bathroom if I was still a truck driver.  If I had gotten the job dressing up as Chuck E. Cheese there would have been loads of youngsters, but the attraction of all of their games and pizza would have kept the kids from hiding out in a stall.  It only became an issue when I decided, as a professional, that it was taking too long to go all the way over to the bathroom across the school yard.  Add to that, the other teachers said that I should just use the bathroom in the room like they did.  OK, I will try.

So with my colleagues watching the youngins' at recess, I decided to try it.  And then 'wham'  it occurred to me..."there is more than enough room for a kid to hide behind this door!"  And so it began...I became a 'behind the door checker.'  Every day when nature called at recess (I have a teacher bladder) I would check behind the door.  I would think, "There's really no reason to check.  No one wants to be in here instead of outside."  But then a thought would follow..."I really don't want to be any part of a phone call that includes the sentence, 'I didn't know your child was in the bathroom with me.'"  So I check.  Every day.  Never found anyone (much like I never found the Boogey man under my bed when I was a kid) but I checked.

Every once in a while, it would seem a little silly to me (like my unproductive Boogey searches) but the risk, in my mind, outweighs the feeling of being silly.  And daily I have nothing to worry about...until last year.

Late last year, little Jane Curtain (the name has been changed to protect the adorable) would rather sit alone than play with the other children.  Mr. Garrett, being a butt-in-ski (I guess we know the answer now) would try to get her to engage in play with other kids.  She continued to find new places to get away from me, to no avail.  And then one day, when I really hadn't noticed if she was playing or hiding, nature called.  I went in thinking, it's silly but I am going to check...pull back the door..."Jane!  What are you doing here?  You need to go back to the playground and stop standing behind the door in the dark!  Do you realize that you have just reinforced a very serious mental disorder in Mr. Garrett and he will have to go to years of counseling with large amounts of medications after this!?"

OK, so maybe that isn't what I said, but I felt vindicated and worried all at the same time!  Perhaps I will need to wait until I get home to answer the call...after all I used to have a truck driver's bladder!