Broke My Heart

I love my kindergarten class internship. I absolutely adore every one of the kids in that class and they bring so much laughter and so many smiles to my day. But yesterday was one of those days where I was reminded of what I actually can and will encounter in my future in this career.

I was sitting at a table with a group during center rotations, like I do every Wednesday morning. The kids love to chat with me during that time and tell me stories about their weeks or what they're going to be doing in the near future, or sometimes just be silly. One little girl was telling me that this week she was going fishing with her dad on a camping trip. I responded appropriately, saying something about how I'd only been fishing once, and one little boy said, "I've never been fishing before." The other kids at the table reminisced on times that they had been fishing before, and then quietly, the same little boy said, "Well, when my mom and dad stop fighting, then maybe we'll go fishing."

The other kids got off on some other tangent about something appealing and interesting, but all I could do was sit there for a minute and reflect on the magnitude of what this child had just said. It was heart-wrenching, but a very real situation. It took me from laughter and joking to this terrible aching feeling in the blink of an eye.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.