Let Me Explain

Monkey in the middle is the worst. I could write a book about all the reasons I dreaded gym class in elementary school, but I never dreaded it as much as when we had to play monkey in the middle. For those of you who have never played (or have suppressed your memories from everything that happened before you were of legal drinking age), the game is basically catch with one or more people in the middle, trying to steal the ball from the main players. If the “monkey” catches the ball, they switch places with the person whose ball they caught. The game ends when the teacher blows the whistle or one of the players realizes that they are basically Sisyphus and decides to go take a nap.

Middle school is a lot like playing monkey in the middle. You’re caught between two end points; you’re so over childhood but don’t yet have the perks of adolescence, like a driver’s license or secondary sex characteristics. Parents, teachers, friends, TV, and Kylie Jenner are all telling you who to be, and you’re just trying to catch the balls that keep flying over your head. Also, it smells pretty similar.

I often joke that I like teaching middle school because I am really a 13-year-old girl in a grown-up’s body. (So, basically, I recount the plot of Freaky Friday.) Adulthood, it turns out, is pretty much the same as middle school but with more debt. You never truly grow out of wanting to sit with the popular girls at lunch or breaking into a cold sweat when the love of your life this week walks into the room. Self-confidence does not suddenly appear when you wake up on your 20th birthday. Acne never really goes away (sorry).

I love teaching middle school because I understand what it is like to be a soul who only half-belongs in its body, grasping endlessly for an unidentified goal that never stops moving. Like a child on the cusp of everything and nothing. Like a monkey in the middle.