The Things They’re Carrying

I taught class this afternoon. My students looked tired.

I’m back in my office, at my desk, starting this post for the fourth time, trying to say something about what happened last night. I’ve got a few ideas but I’ve got a hole in my heart and I’m realizing that it’s more important what the roomful of twenty-year-olds I just spent an hour with today are feeling. They didn’t want to talk about the election; I asked. They wanted to talk about The Things They Carried, and they did a good job, talking about the material and emotional things O’Brien’s young soldiers carry around with them and the stories they tell themselves in order to try to understand their experience of the war in Viet Nam. Some of them seemed distracted. They’re also stressed out and anxious and scared, and some of them seem angry, and who can blame them. Look at the world we’re giving them.

I ended class five minutes early when I noticed how down many of them looked. I asked if they felt like they looked and they said yes and we talked about what might help and we came up with getting some sleep, hydrating, calling moms, and getting off of social media. I’m going to try to take our advice too. We’re all going to have to think about what comes next, but for now we need to avoid listening to people who think they have the one true story of whose fault this all is and we need to take care of ourselves and the people around us. I try not to call my students kids, but they sure seemed like kids today, and they sure seemed to be carrying some heavy weight.