Can I call you Ruffio?

And just like that, munchkins they weren’t.

These are my boyfriends Gop and Nex fighting over me at school. If it were December of 2014, Gop would be writing me love notes and Nex would sneak up to kiss me on the cheek then run away giggling. This year they’re both still trying to get a date for the weekend but the sweet, shy smiles have gone. Gop now wants to practice boxing and Nex wants me to watch him sail.

Teacha – Well boys, it’s almost 2016 and you are munchkins no more. You’re lost boys now. Can I call one of you Ruffio?
Gop – Teacha you are crazy and I do not understand you but Nex swim no good and he gay, have boyfriend!
Nex – Ayyyyy Teacha Mai Chai! Gop cheat at boxing (makes eye gouging motion) and Nex is most handsome, not gay.

More insults and a couple lies ensue before they turn back to me, hands on hips and ask again,
“So Teacha…Saturday.”

Leaving the school, I laughed and thought about Tee. I tutored Tee everyday last December to prepare him to get into a private high school in New Zealand. The tutoring sessions and the international school were both low on his list of priorities at the time and he put on plenty of “what’s the point” teenage melodramas.

I told him the point was I needed him to do better and if he wasn’t going to do it for himself, he was just going to have to do it for me. This really set him off.

What? Why I gonna do something so hard for you. I not even want to do for myself and you have messy hair! I said Tee, you love my messy hair so much it just might change the course of your whole life. Do better.

Back to 2015. In a poetic circle, Tee came to see me after finishing his first year abroad.

Tee – Hey, Girl with no friends. I not see you one year so why you look the same?

Teacha – Because I’m an adult Tee. I don’t have to change my look everytime a pop star has an identity crisis, that’s your department.
Tee – You are a mess. Do better man.
Teacha – Alright angsty, I hope you didn’t come to study because I don’t teach international students

Tee – ”No, not study. I come to tell you I gonna go to college USA for you.”

Teacha – Because you love my messy hair

Tee – Because I love your messy hair.

I look at these pictures of the boys and think of how much they have changed yet stayed the same and I can’t stop smiling. Though I feel a slight pang for their munchkin days, possibly the best thing about love is that it is never complacent. It changes always because it changes you for the better. And if there is one thing we can always be, it is better.

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Love from Munchkinland, Teacha Katie.