Ecco La Vita

On my way back from a delicious pizza dinner with my Mom and my Aunt Lisa, I saw two of my students on the metropolitana, heading home after the Inter game. They muttered a "Ciao Sara", and sheepishly looked away before awkwardly starting their conversation again. It was odd, because my students usually greet me with a ridiculous "Good Morning Prof Sara! How are you today?", or something like that. But this time, they gave me a brief nod, a soft "ciao", and that was it.
I realized that for them, that had been the strange moment of seeing their teacher outside of school. It must have been even weirder, since I was with my family, and thus being American, speaking English, and doing American things - all very unfamiliar to them.
I remember what it's like, seeing your teacher outside of school and with other people. For me, it was the same sensation I would get when I would look up at the sky at night and see millions of stars, or look out onto the open ocean. It's the sense that everything is bigger than you, and that what you perceive as your life is relatively incidental. As a student, it's so easy to self-indulge in your own experience and life. You see your teacher outside of school, and suddenly, it's all too clear that perhaps, you're not as important as you think. I remember this being followed by a distinct feeling of guilt; guilt that you assumed such importance in the first place.
I wanted to run up to my students and hug them. I wanted to tell them they were important, that it was okay to be just as ridiculous with me as they are in school, and to never stop being ridiculous for anyone. I wanted to let them know that I didn't even feel like a teacher, that in my head I"m still a student, and that if it were up to me, they wouldn't even call me "prof". I wanted to share high school memories with them. I wanted to ask them about the soccer game. I wanted to know how they were getting home, or if they were going out after the game. I wanted to know all these things.
But then I looked, and noticed that they were back to joking around. They were talking about the soccer game and laughing about the good time they had had, and remarked that they hoped the bus would be there when they got off the metro. I smiled, relieved that they weren't hung up on the student-teacher thing too much. I wished them a Buona Pasqua as I got off the train, looking forward to my first day back after vacation when we could all return to our normal ways.