Yesterday, a student came into my
classroom and gave me a pink balloon. I’m not sure why. It sort of just sat under my desk until this morning,
when I picked it up and put it on
the bookcase to clear some space for the billions of things I had going on in
and around my desk.
A student who usually eats lunch in
my room walked over, picked up the balloon and started tapping it up in the
air. My gut instinct, despite
being mid-bite of my sandwich, was to get up and hit the balloon back to her. And then it began.
A senior in high school and my
34-year-old self were magically transformed into our former 10 year-old
selves. It felt like all I
had to do in my life – my only focus, my only goal, was to hit that balloon
back to her successfully without letting it hit the ground. And then all she had to do was hit it
back to me. And repeat. If we could do this, we would be the champions
of the world. For 3 solid minutes
we did this, making sure it didn’t hit the ground; this is the unspoken rule of
playing balloon. If I held up a
mirror right then, I think it would reflect only smile. In that 3 minutes, we were literally
free; all of the things that previously were racing through our heads - our
worries, our fears, our responsibilities – they all went away, and for those
precious moments, we were untouchable.
I am grateful for that balloon and
for being able to go back to what it feels like to be weightless.
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