Love...

No not the mushy-gushy cheesy kind....or the fake "I love you"s that we throw around with acquaintances...or even the love we have for our family...

This time of year is a time of love, family, and close friends.  While there are few people in our lives we choose to love to a very deep level, it is those experiences that bring about something more to our lives.  Now I'm not talking about family who we love by nature or even romantic love that is a special love....but the choice of love.  Many people don't consciously choose to love others....it often happens naturally or through a deep relationship (both romantic or friendship), but I've experienced a different kind of love that I've only begun to understand most recently.  This is a love I have for my students.  Now you may be thinking...okay so these kids are really cute and so you love them...no that is not it at all.  I work in a middle school...where my students curse, call me names, and have by all means lost a lot of the "cuteness" (we all know middle school is the most awkward phase anyways).  While recently been called a prostitute by a student of mine....I can still say from the bottom of my heart that I have experienced a love that I NEVER understood to exist.  I don't want this to be too cliche (because that is actually the whole point of me writing this), but I want to try my best to explain what I am feeling (although I don't really believe words will do it....I'll give it a shot).  

So...often we love someone because we see ourselves in someone (naturally...by human nature...we are selfish) and we enjoy being validated by the fact that someone else understands us or likes the same things we do.  Other times we love someone because of a special chemistry or feeling we get in the pit of our stomach that cannot be described.  This feeling is often backed up by similarities and psychological emotions.  We also love people because they are physically linked to us through a blood line and they gave us certain physical and emotional traits.  We also love our providers...both monetarily, psychologically, and emotionally.  We even love people that care about us...and always have our backs...yes I am talking about the friends that are few and far between on top of the obvious: family.  I find myself very lucky to have numerous types of love in my life.  Now without overusing the word love....I want to distinguish it and say that I'm not calling friends that aren't super close relationships of love.  But I am talking about a love that doesn't necessarily have to be two-sided.  

This love I have for my students is an uneven see-saw of love.  I think that is because these children do not know how to give a lot of love because they do not get a whole lot.  When asked the other day in a group of 13 girls...only 3 lived with their fathers and said that they feel loved because their dad buys them whatever they want.  To me...love cannot be bought...and while things can be nice...ultimately they remove you further from who you really are as someone who can give and receive love.  So I would say these students do not know love too much in their family and their mothers that do live and take care of them are often overwhelmed working and providing for far too many children for a single parent that they can't give each child all that they deserve and need.  So I guess that is where I come in.  Now...I don't want to toot my own horn by any means because I think that I actually am selfish when it comes to service because I get more than I give.  But besides the point....I have come to love these children who in a sense are hard to love.  It wasn't until recently where they stopped denying the fact that they even like having us around.  Some students in particular (without saying favorites) come give me hugs and call my name out not because they need help with work, but because they like having me around.  It is often the students that need it the most that I love the most.  

Certain students break my heart everyday, but these same students give me the most smiles in my life.  One in particular caught me tapping my pen on his desk during his warm-up and immediately goes "Ms. Sam, why you so happy?"  Sometimes I think these kids that are so far from the person I am understand me more than anyone else in my life.  They read me better than they can read their books that are so straight to the point.  Even though they come to school in dirty tattered uniforms with new Nike shoes (don't even get me started about that), they are human to their core and don't have a whole lot to cover it up like the rest of us.  They make me want to be a better person.  They make me re-evaluate my life far more than I probably should.  So I could continue to ramble about how these students make me feel or I can just leave it at that and say that as the holidays come up and I can fly home to my safe bubble in California I will miss these kids more than anything and worry if they are full and warm.  I would seriously consider adopting a few if it were at all a possibility to steal them from their families....even though not ready to be a mom....it is crazy what I would give up.  

These kids fill my life with so much more than anything else possibly could at this point in my life.  Already half way through the year...I'm anxious and stressed about leaving in June...telling them that I plan to hang out with them this summer.  

With a love that cannot be explained, replaced, or is even felt by many....

Ms. Sam...Ms. Wilson...Sam...Samantha...and the long list of names I am called on a daily basis...but my favorite being: Ms. Sam