You are getting enough sleep. Or close enough. You are going to bed at a reasonable hour, waking up at a reasonable hour, doing the things you are supposed to do. And you are still exhausted. Not tired in the way a good weekend away would fix. Tired in a way that seems to sit underneath everything, that rest does not seem to touch, that you have quietly started to wonder might just be who you are now.

Mothers are capable in ways that don’t always get named. They adjust without being asked. They notice without being told. They carry what needs to be carried, often before anyone else realizes it needed attention in the first place and it is easy to take for granted—not because it’s small, but because it’s constant.

A teacher is a role. A profession. A job title that appears on a contract and a timetable and a staff list. There are millions of teachers in the world right now and every single one of them matters.

But THE teacher is something else.