Why do I fall in love with my students? Not in a perv-y way, of course, but in a “I-sincerely-enjoy-spending-time-with-you-and-wish-only –the-best-for-you” way.

Here’s why it’s perplexing: I’ve done this a long time. The relationships repeat the same pattern. I don’t know them. I get to know them and want to slap them silly. Then I love them. Then they leave me.

I have my own kids. I don’t need these transient young adults in my life. But yet, I am somehow built for this. The connection is almost palpable at times. We laugh so hard and share inside jokes and work together—for 3 months, 6 months, a few years. And then they move on, as they should, and fresh crops of fresh faces show up, sometimes peeking around the corner of the door to my office, are more often sitting, one of many, in the classroom before I enter on Day One, trying to keep those fresh faces impassive, cool for the others, when we both know Day One is a good one.

I’m grateful for technology—it allows some of my bestie best students to stay in touch, to keep track. It’s nice to know in what they’re doing and (digitally) watch them grow up.

Maybe part of the appeal is that—they’re only “mine” for a little while. Someone else oversaw them before they came to me, (hopefully) they will see after themselves when they leave. And I get to be a pair of hands that passes them forward, that takes up some small part in their head, even after they’re gone.