So here's the thing, I don't know if I'm ever going to publish this post or not, but I know I haven't written anything in almost a year and a half because I have needed to write this post. I would like to say I have a story worth telling, or at least a story I need to tell. That isn't the case though. I just have baggage I need to sit down for a little while so I can collect my strength to carry it again.
The truth?
I'm hurting.
Alot.
Less now than I was before, but still alot.
You know that meme going around… ———->
…well, it's true.
If you know me personally, you know I love teaching. My students are amazing--even the ones who other teachers thought weren't so amazing. They were lights in my life for sixteen years--they were my drive, my motivation, my reason, my calling. There is not a single day of my career as an educator that I am willing to trade or give back. But I had to leave to survive.
There is a sociological theory that your tribe, your sociological collective, can only grow so large (around 200) before members of the tribe have to begin to split off. This split is necessary for everyone's mental and emotional well-being because the brain can only manage so many interpersonal connections. It's almost as if your soul can only manage to care for so many other hearts before the soul begins to cave in on itself. I saw more than 200 members of my sociological collective every day before lunch.
My soul was wilting.
I did this five days a week for more than six years.
It made me a shell. I didn't have a coping mechanism to help me care for that much pain, anxiety, anguish, guilt, shame, vulnerability, love, pride, joy, or laughter. Everyday was a rollercoaster. One day on the job, a favorite student found out he was receiving the financial assistance necessary to attend the dream college he had been accepted to earlier in the school year. We worked hard together to find him the money and I felt like I won that battle with him--an enormous weight was lifted from me. That was during third period. In fourth period, on the same day, I sat in the same seat crying with a young man who’s father was killed in a car accident that morning. The boy came to school because his mother couldn't look at him, “he looked too much like his dad.” A different but equally heavy weight crashed down upon me and I felt as if my entire body was broken.
Few days in my professional context were “normal”. There was never much calm between storms. I lived in a constant state of flux and anticipation. There was never a way to plan or anticipate what would walk through my classroom door with the nearly 800 students I saw each day. Each day I dealt with whatever came in; saying, “Not right now, tell me later,” was not an option in my class. And I would not give a single one of those days back. However, I realized I didn't have anymore of those days left in me to give.
My fellow teachers would love a rousing post about quitting because of dwindling wages.
My Union would love for this post to be an indictment of the corrupt political system wreaking havoc on public education.
Some would expect this to be an accounting of poor administrative leadership which drove me out of my classroom.
Honestly, I could offer up those excuses. They were all factors in my calculus. But really I was just tired and burnt from caring so much, so deeply, for so many others who were hurting so badly that I began to hurt that badly, too. A hurt I didn't know how to stop. And one day I decided the pain was too much and I had to do something different for myself.
So I quit.
I didn't give a two week notice.
I just quit.
And then I took a two month vacation to clean my house and cry. Mainly cry. I grieved the life I walked out on…so hard. Some days I thought, “I'll just set my alarm, get up, get ready, and go back to work like nothing ever happened and it will all go back to 'normal'.”
I cried over students who graduated, students still in school, and students I had not yet even met. I cried about missing orientation. I cried about my step team. I cried as I threw away lesson plans. I cried as I re-tooled my home work space from “teacher” to “artist”. I cried about my Master's degree which I felt was now wasted. I cried over my resume every time I applied for a new job.
I cried.
I still cry.
I'm crying now.
A friend of mine said I was born to be a teacher. (Another friend of mine said she couldn't believe I was wasting my life teaching—so I guess that sort of balances out). I don't know what I was born to do, but what I had been doing wasn't it. I was not born to suffer as I had been suffering.
People keep expecting me to go back. I won't say never, but I am going to say not likely. I have moved on because that is what I had to do. I was looking for something that was no longer in my classroom, so I had to move forward and start looking for something else.
I'm still not a complete person--there is a ginormous hole in my soul I don't know how to fill.
AND I'M STILL CRYING OVER MY STEP TEAM!
But right now, I know my humanity is healing because I can look at the future and smile with possibilities. Education will always be a dominant theme in my life. And now I'm finding ways to make my visual artwork intersect with that theme. One day, maybe soon, performance arts will walk back into my life and tie it all back together again.
How do you give your entire soul to something?
That's easy. You just fall back, arms outstretched, eyes closed, the sun on your face, and smile with joy.
How do you get your life back after giving up your soul to something you love so much?
I don't know.
But I do know that I am moving forward. I am happy. I create. I write. I love. I smile. I laugh. And yes I cry (often about missing my team).
