Abandonment Issues

I have a hard time talking about this because for whatever reason, I have a hard time admitting that I love my job. But here goes:

I have abandonment issues.

I worked with young children for over six years, and I've seen a lot of kids come and go. At one job, their third birthday is the ticket. At my other, it's the first year. Both of these milestones mean that my kids are graduating and moving on to another class or building. It might not sound like much. It probably isn't that big of a deal to 90% of the population, but for me? It's the end of another relationship I have spent the last year (or three) cultivating. Even if I've only seen the child twice a week, I've still spent over 400 hours with that child. I've invested in their development; helped them learn to crawl, comforted them after getting hurt, rocked them to sleep, etc.

While my entire life doesn't center around these little babies, a great portion of it does. If one of them gets fever on Friday, I remember it come Monday. I know which foods are in the top ten, and which toys make them smile the most. I spend hours with them every weekday, and then one day they don't show up. And then a week passes and a month and you know they're not coming back, but worse you know they wouldn't remember you even if they did.

In the Richard Curtis movie About Time, the time traveller Tim goes back in time to help a friend only to find that the woman he fell in love with doesn't know who he is in his new reality. In The Vow, a married couple gets in a car accident and when his wife wakes up, the husband discovers her amnesia covers the entirety of their relationship, leaving him feeling empty and her feeling uncomfortable. In my case, that happens every three months and is just considered a hazard of the job.

It is the worst part of my job.