Skiving

Being back at work after a bereavement is tricky.

The organising doesn't stop, you don't suddenly start eating properly or sleeping normally (whatever that looks like) just because you are back at work. You still have a lump in your throat, wish you didn't have to talk to anyone and find yourself staring off into space and losing all track of time.

Your colleagues don't know what to say to you and your day vacillates between feeling and wanting to be ignored.

When you work in a school you imagine it might be easier. Children just go on being how they are, you kid yourself that you'll just be able to put on your professional hat and get on with it. Unfortunately, with teaching comes an unrealistic expectation to be constantly brilliant and when you know that's not happening the guilt sets in.  You know a couple of children aren't doing what you've asked them to but you just let them do nothing because, well, you have staring into space to do. You know that you could get a great performance out of a class if you got off your chair and leapt around the room a bit but you don't because leaping goes with sleeping. The level of general chatter is doing your head in and you know you should stop it but the lump in your throat seems to prevent you from saying anything.

The pressure to be in work, when you teach, is enormous. Teachers don't take time off, most save up sickness for the holidays. Caught between the guilt of a less than perfect lesson and leaving the classes without you the first one wins. There is also an unspoken expectation that you will be there.

If you live in the town you work and take time off then you can't risk being seen in case you are judged.


"Miss, where were you last week?"
I was caught off-guard. This wasn't a question I'd prepared myself for.
"Oh, err, I, errr, um."
"Because we were saying that you're never off sick. You come in even when you've lost your voice."
"Ha, ha, yes I do, don't I?"
"So?"
"I.....errr..... couldn't be here."
"Because I saw you. Coming out of the road at the top."
Another child suddenly became interested in the conversation.
"Were you sick."
"No, not really."
"Ummm. You were faking it." He turns round to the rest of the class to announce that I was just skiving last week. The class divides into two clear groups: those that thought I was cool and wanted to fist bump and the shocked, breath holding goody-goodies. I've never been in the cool group before.
"Hey Miss, have you got something in your eye?"