My name is Mo Kim, I'm a teacher, and I'm not okay.

Dear colleague:

My name is Mo Kim, I'm a high school teacher, and I'm not okay.

I have held onto this letter for months now. I've turned it over in my head like a worksheet I can't solve. I've clenched it between my gums as if that would stop the bleeding. But even when I hold this in, it seeps out of me one word at a time. A cranky comment slips out of my mouth towards my Block 3. A "how are you?" from a colleague turns into an impromptu 20-minute vent session. I repeat all the classic teacher mantras to myself: Focus on the positives. Take it one day at a time. Think about solutions, not problems. And still, four months into the year, I feel as if I'm slowly shattering.

Last Wednesday, as I make my way across the room during staff meeting, I stumble. My half-finished lunch spills across the floor and I spill with it. Tears filling my eyes, I rush to grab napkins, kneel on the carpet, watch as people help me pick up peas and carrots and grains of rice off the ground. Soak in my guilt as y'all help clean up the mess. My mess.

So maybe that's why I'm here, at 11PM, writing this letter. I am tired of spilling over. I am tired of feeling like we need to hold everything together when everything around us feels like it's falling apart.

It hurts so much more to know that I'm not the only one who's struggling. I talk to our new staff and I hear so many things: how lonely it's felt to enter a school community in turmoil, how hard it's been to build your practice without mentorship or support, how demanding it is to step into a role and hit the ground running. When I arrived at my school as a first-year teacher, I was a college graduate with zero classroom experience; I was only here because somebody chose to take a chance on me. I would never have grown into the teacher I am today without the steady care, love, and wisdom of the colleagues and mentors I met along the way. I know that everybody deserves that same opportunity.

I worry about my sophomores, too. I love them, all 148 of them. I love the confidence they are slowly finding in their voices; the in-jokes and greetings I find on the bulletin board; the one student in every class who reminds me to change the daily schedule when I forget. I love them even when they barge into my room at bad times and talk during Silent Launch and leave my room for 20 minutes. But I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough to serve them as well as I want to. Inside my class, I see heads down in the first ten minutes, Chromes open when they shouldn't be, Snake scores piling as high as the list of missing assignments in Infinite Campus. Outside my door, I see kids wandering campus like they're looking for any place to call home: they are exhausted, scared, hurt, lost. They need so much more than what any one teacher or classroom can give them right now.

So when I dig deeper, I'm not just tired: I'm pissed. I am angry as I watch my colleagues and my students hurting because of everything that has changed in the last six months. I am angry that I poured four years of my life to build this organization - as long as the seniors who will graduate in June - only to watch it struggle due to the callous actions of a few leaders. I am angry that many of my new colleagues are not experiencing the level of care and support that every new teacher deserves: just like me, just like our students, they too are scrambling to survive this year. And I am angry that we will continue protecting our kids and each other even as everywhere around me, I see adults in power who would clearly much rather protect themselves.

And sure, we are told that this too is somehow our responsibility - to take care of ourselves in a system that was never meant to care for us. Take things off your plate. Count from 1 to 10. Make time for you. And by the way, have you tried eating a salad lately? I have listened to all this advice. I take the day off, even when I know someone else will have to fill my absence. I let the stack of books I want to read grow taller and taller. I drag my ass out of bed and drive to the rock climbing gym twice a week, even when I end up falling asleep in the parking lot. I sit in my room after the bell rings, twirling room-temperature arugula with a plastic fork, and the thoughts don't go away. No. This is not good enough. I am beyond extending unlimited grace. I am beyond waiting in line to talk to the leader. I am beyond asking politely for things to change. I am mad as hell and I'm ready to fuck shit up.

I sit with these thoughts, then I drive home in the dark.

When I sat down tonight, I didn't know what I was going to write; I just knew that my mouth has been filling with blood for four months and I don't have the strength to swallow my pride anymore. I don't know if this letter crosses a professional boundary, I don't know how many people out there feel the same way that I do, and I definitely don't know what's coming next for us in this school year. Your guess is as good as mine. But I'm still here and I'm not going to be quiet anymore. And hey, maybe that's as close to okay as I can get right now.

Your colleague,

Mo