THIS IS WHY I'M STILL STANDING

THIS IS WHY I'M STILL STANDING

A Letter to My 4th Hour
— Mr. Sharks

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You saw me on the day the fight broke out.
You saw the way I froze up.
The way I moved slow.
The way I looked like I couldn’t figure out what was happening.
And someone said — maybe half-joking, maybe not —

“He looked like he was under the influence.”

And that broke something in me.

Because here’s the truth:
I am under the influence.
Not of anything illegal.
But of pain. Chronic, shapeshifting, body-breaking pain.

I have something called fibromyalgia — a disorder of the nervous system.
It means my brain sends pain signals where there shouldn’t be any.
It means sometimes just walking down the hall feels like my body is made of sand and wire.

And on that day — the day you saw me half-frozen at the door —
I was also under the influence of grief.
My sister had just died.
My relationship had just collapsed.
My nervous system was flaring* from the screaming, the chaos, the sudden threat.

I wasn’t drunk.
I wasn’t high.
I was collapsed. And still I stood.
And still I kept you in that room.
And still I tried to make sure no one else got hurt.

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I don’t tell you this to guilt-trip you.
I tell you this because you deserve to know the truth.

Every day, I show up in this building carrying more than you can see.
And I don’t always do it well.
Sometimes I’m slow to respond.
Sometimes my face looks tired.
Sometimes I don’t give you the energy you wish I could.

But I show up anyway.
I show up because I believe something sacred can still happen in a classroom,
even when the world is broken.

I show up because I know some of you are hurting too,
and I want to be someone who didn’t fake it, didn’t lie, didn’t pretend to be made of steel.

I show up because the world has enough masks.
You don’t need another teacher pretending he’s okay when he isn’t.
You need someone real.

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What you didn’t know is this:
That morning, I almost called in again.
I’d already missed a week — for death, for pain, for sheer collapse.
And every single day, I wake up having to decide:
Do I damage myself more by showing up half-broken — or by not showing up at all?

That day, I came anyway. And I was *flaring. And I was slow.
Because I was not okay.
But I came.
I stood.
And I stayed in the room with you.

Some of you think I don’t care.
But the truth is, every day I am negotiating the cost of caring —
on a body that breaks under it,
on a mind that won’t stop reflecting,
on a heart that’s already grieving ten things you’ll never see.

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So here’s the deal.
You don’t owe me anything.
But if I’m going to keep standing, I need something too:

• Respect.

• Grace.

• The willingness to believe I am trying.

If you’ve said things about me —
that I was lazy, or weird, or out of it —
you don’t have to apologize.
But I hope now you understand what you were seeing.

You were seeing someone doing their best to carry a collapsing world,
and still offer you a space to breathe.

That’s why I’m still standing.
And as long as I can, I will keep standing for you.

— Mr. Sharks