I Watched Teaching Break My Partner

Some nights, I watch my spouse come home from the school where she teaches—her face gray, shoulders slumped, voice barely above a whisper. She pours everything into those kids, but the district barely gives her enough to keep the lights on. I see her grade papers at midnight, fighting tears because another student failed, or because the heat in her classroom broke again and no one cares. We used to talk about changing lives. Now we talk about surviving another year. She hides the exhaustion, but I see it. I see the way she flinches when someone says, “You get summers off.” I see how she’s learned to swallow hope, to settle for just making it through. No one tells you how much it costs to care this much, or how lonely it feels when you realize you can’t save everyone. #TeacherBurnout #EducationReality #InvisibleStruggles #Education