It's been a while since I've written; not because I've forgotten, but mostly because I wanted to write when I actually had something to say. Yesterday marked the end of another school year -- my fourth-- as a teacher, and becomes what is now a foray into the landmark "5th year." For some reason, "statisticians" love to hover around the 5th year of teaching…"if you make it until your 5th year, you're a teacher for life!" " X % of teachers will leave the field before their 5th year of teaching…" I get it. I've felt it. I was going to leave teaching, most certainly, each year before this one. I have spent almost 4 summers of my life on the fence about whether to stay or to go and when and where- it was awful! It feels like a lifetime since I've been able to say that I know where I will be in the fall, and that's pretty darn good feeling. Finally, I anticipate a summer where I can enjoy myself instead of dreading a smattering of interviews and their requisite callbacks (or not) and having to make life-altering (for me) decisions of where to accept a job, and what the implications would then be for the people I love most in my life.
To put it in a bit of perspective: I was on a Caribbean island, 3 summers ago, when I accepted a teaching job in NC that would require me to move back down there (I had previously moved back to NY from there just 1.5 years prior), and then I was on the same Caribbean island the year after that when I turned down a very prestigious teaching job in NY because I wasn't ready to leave North Carolina (even though I didn't enjoy the job I was in there). Then, the year after that, while on vacation in Mexico, I resigned from my NC post to accept what I very quickly learned would be the most awful job of my life, thus far, at a school in the NYC public school system. What did that job acceptance then entail? I had to drive, alone, 11 hrs, down to NC and pack up 2 years of my life (one I loved very much). It took me days without any help- My belongings and my life there were shoved into every available seat of my black Nissan, as I trekked back, alone, on an 11 hour journey from NC to NY. Poof! Nothing about that summer was enjoyable. Now, fast-foward to last summer-- it was fantastic because I knew I would be working at a new school in the fall (FASP), but it was also unnerving because I had to relocate once more, and didn't know at all what the work year would bring.
This summer, on my very first day of summer vacation, I don't have to worry about any of that. Instead, I look back on this past year, and I feel really grateful. I went from jobs I could't stand (and consequently; well, more more accurately than consequently is: evidently-- jobs where it seemed like my bosses couldn't stand me or had no interest in me) to one where I didn't dread going back to work on Mondays after a "too-short" weekend. Where I was given compliments not only on my teaching ability but on my character. Where I walked down the hallway each day and received a most beautiful smile wishing me a good morning (Marielle). Last year? in some instances I was scowled at or completely ignored when I greeted people; and I never got used to the insult of both of those things.
Now, I've said goodbyes to children & staff this summer and truly know that no extenuating circumstance will prevent me from missing them for the 10 weeks we are off (I've missed and continue to miss students/coworkers at all schools I've been at- but it was always overshadowed by being unhappy in my place of work) or forever (Nathalie, you need to come back & teach with me again someday). It's taken me 4 years to find this, and in the grand scheme of life that may not seem like a lot, but for me that is an eternity. It felt like a journey through black hole of job-related unhappiness to find what I have found, and I am thankful.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have been very careful with compartmentalizing my feelings; I tell myself things like: "Allow yourself to feel 75% happiness with any degree of comfort, because it could take just 25% or 15% or 1% to change and make you upset with work." A fool's errand would be to really go headfirst into ANYTHING, and think that it can't or won't change. Life changes, people change, ideals & ideas change. So with that, I look back on this work year with gratitude and look forward to next with hope (and a healthy degree of change ((not Obama's change- MY change)) ) because you never know who (M.J. et N. G.-S.) or what will become your beacon of light - your rayon de soleil.
Thank you/ Merci
- Christina
2 Comments
|