*Your problems don’t go away if you ignore them.*
I feel like this is a lesson I should have learned already in my life, first as a child, then repeatedly as a teen, and then again as a college student grappling with my own schedule for the first time. In some areas of my life I’ve truly mastered this lesson. At least I thought I had…
Hungry? Get yourself something to eat.
Tired? Take a nap.
Bored? Find something new and exciting to engage your mind.
Stressed? Eat your feelings.
Overwhelmed? Cry at your desk every day but pretend like everything is totally fine.
Whoa, okay, so maybe I’m still working on this…
I tend to be an all-in or all-out kinda girl. When I get interested in something, I get completely enthralled. I want to learn everything about it, read everything about it, be the best at everything about it. While this isn’t always maintainable long-term, it does provide for some really passionate periods of my life, and I consider myself a decently-rounded person in terms of interests. Or at least I’m pretty good at random trivia. (I always win when I play Jeopardy in my living room against the TV contestants.) I think that some people may characterize this type of behavior as flaky, but I’ve always chosen to spin it in a positive way. I mean, have you seen the slogan for this blog? It’s kinda my thing.
However you choose to look at it, what it generally boils down to is that I tend to tackle my problems. I’m not scared of a challenge. I welcome fear. I look at the unknown and it excites me. I’ve been known to say that the things that scare you are the things that are MOST worth doing. I don’t often try to ignore away things that bother me.
But I’ve never tried to pretend something doesn’t exist harder than I have this year. My god, if my paychecks were based on my rate of denial, I would have been raking in the dough! It seems like you can’t just wish away stress, unhappiness, and the knowledge that it’s time for a change. Wishing and pretending only prolong the hurt and inflame the worry.
I recently made the decision to take some time away from my classroom. Last week I packed up most of my personal items into boxes and told each of my classes that I wasn’t going to be their teacher anymore. This is a decision that tore me apart. I’ve never felt more conflicted about something in my life. I tried to ignore my overwhelming feelings of distress and despair throughout October.
Teaching has always been a stressful job for me, and I have always fought with serious issues of perfectionism.
This year, however, turned out to be a new level of personal purgatory. No matter how hard I tried I could not find an ounce of balance between my personal and professional lives this year. I found myself eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at my desk most days, and the workload still didn’t seem to dissipate. I was reluctant to leave work unfinished, but I was also depressed about the things I wanted to be doing but couldn’t.
It felt like I was watching my life go past on one of those news tickers, scrolling past with nothing of great importance to report. I found myself wondering if this was really it for me. Was this really how I was going to live the rest of my life? Is this how the next fifty years look for me?
Very early on in the year, I had written about why I think teachers need to be more selfish. And I finally decided to take my own advice. I decided that 28 is not too old to start over but it is too young to feel hopelessly unhappy. I decided that self care is more important for me right now than to continue meeting the expectations of others. I decided that dragging myself through the rest of the year wasn’t benefiting me or my students. I decided that it’s okay to change your mind, even about something as important as your calling.
I have to thank my students and my colleagues who have been overwhelmingly supportive. I wasn’t sure what kind of reactions I would get when I finally went public with my decisions to leave, but I was honored and touched by all the love. From sweet notes of support, to pep talks and hugs in the hallway, to the reassurances that “it really is only a job”, the hardest part of leaving was leaving the wonderful people that I worked with. Every time another colleague walked into my room last Friday, I burst into tears anew. I felt like I was letting down every teacher that I had ever worked with, and I had such a hard time articulating what I wanted to tell each person. So here it is:
To my former co-workers,
It has been an honor to work with you and beside you. Keep on fighting the good fight. You work harder than anyone else I know, for a lot less credit. You deserve more money, more leisure time, and nothing but the nicest students, parents, and colleagues. I wish you joy and success in the future and continued staff snack days forever.
Erika
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