Must I be?

The request not to look back at a loved one you’re worried about goes against human nature. When you’re walking with someone you love and they’re out of your sight, the urge to find them and check on them is so strong. So I think whether or not Orpheus turning around is a failing or proof or his love depends a lot on what love means to you.

Are you doing everything you can to save her, even defying your own nature, your good sense, your worry, putting your own feelings and humanity aside in the hopes that at the end she’ll live?

The people who say that they wouldn’t have turned around are saying that her life is worth their discomfort, their stress, and fear on that long walk. But that they could distance themselves from it, even if it meant forcing their own face forward, for the sake of her life.

Or is love best exemplified by human nature itself? That you’re doing everything you can to save her, head straight forward. but then in a moment, on an instinct, you turn to look, because you love her, and you’re worried, and you can’t not.

The people who say turning around is the point say that love is not separate from human instinct, that it can’t be overcome. When we spin around in a second to find our friends and family in the crowd when we realize that they’re no longer at our side? That’s a pure show of love too.

The reason I used this instead of a simple yes or no answer is because it opened up conversation. Instead of blindly looking for permission, the conversation became more about cause and effect. Usually it navigated the "well you can't tell me what to do I'm going to do it anyway" instinct in kids when I'd say no, because all they were looking for is something to challenge them.

For example: "Can I jump off the slide?"

"Technically you can, but should you?"

If they answer no, I'd ask why. Usually they'd say because it's against the rules or I don't know.

If they say it's against the rules, I'd ask them why they think it's a rule. And if they'd say I don't know, I'd explain that the slide is five feet off of the ground, and jumping that high is a good way to hurt your knees or worse.

And then the most important part: if you did do it, how can you make it safer?

That's when the creativity juices started to flow. I'd get anything from pillows to beds to bouncy shoes to wings to someone catching them (which became a whole different conversation). And I told them since we didn't have those things here, it wasn't safe. And safety is everyone's number one job at school.

It stopped them from doing it behind my back. It got them to engage in critical thinking. And it helped them figure out how to do things without help.

All of y’alls support helped boost my confidence right before a very important call. Thank you <3

and we are going to have to stop desperately scrambling to say noooo, they have to be like that, they have no choice, they wouldn’t be like this if they didnt have to. we HAVE to stop falling all over ourselves assuring straight people and transphobes that we hate being us as much as they hate us being us, that we are suffering and that’s why we deserve this decadence and deviancy. we HAVE to start saying “yeah ok and?”