The Spinny Chair revised

I first stole the spinny chair in the corner of Mrs. McCann’s history class about a week into my freshman year of high school. It drove her crazy, and I proceeded to take it every class after, and when the year was up, I took it every time I stopped by, which was often. I’d walk in run and slide across the room on the chair while borderline yelling “MRS. MCCANNNNNNNNN”. She’d fake groan and then listen while I talked. Typically our conversations were for five minutes until the bell rang and her class started or she had a meeting to go to, and other days I hung out for close to an hour or more when I’d be stranded at school.

This had gone on for a while and my junior year things weren’t going very great. My life at home was a disaster and on top of that I was in the middle of a raging internal war between my religion and my sexuality. My ability to keep up an optimistic persona was slacking, and so were my grades. I had Mrs. McCann again that year for AP Modern Euro and my performance in the class was a disaster. I stayed after class one day, moving from my regular seat to the spinny chair and calling her name across the room even though I’d never left, and pulled up to her desk. I could hear the fake positivity in my voice, and she could too. She brought up the lack of assignments I’d done for the class, and I fumbled to try and come up with an excuse, but she didn’t take it and asked me what was actually going on.

 I hesitated for a moment, then I decided to talk, but I only told half of the story. I told the part that wouldn’t make things worse if they were out. I explained that I was in charge of my younger siblings until 8:30 every night and that I wasn’t getting along well with my parents. It was just a portion, but it was enough and she listened.

Going forward, she was more understanding in regards to my work in class, and would check in quickly whenever I stopped by or hung back after class. But that was it.

It was not that it was a life changing situation, or she solved all my issues at home, but she had asked me about what was going on. I had other teachers who had been worried about me, ones that I overheard talking about me, emailing each other about my behaviors, calling home to my mother, etc. But none of them had reached out personally to me, or asked me how I was doing. She gave me a chance to speak, and showed me that she cared, and that was what I had needed at the time. I had felt like my life was out of my control, and she gave me some control over talking about what was going on. Often times I would escape the chaos of my house and roller blade up and down my street. I did a lot of thinking at this time, and after that conversation, I often had further conversations with her in my head. In them I talked about my struggles with identity, I explained just how bad things had been at home, and I didn’t hold anything back. Eventually a few topics were talked about more deeply, and I came out to her during my senior year. But most of the time, she was just someone I knew I could go to if I needed to. The spinny chair was always an open seat, even if I was told no every time I took it.