Friday, February 3, 2017

The journey isn't always what it seems to be

The plane tickets are ordered.  The hotel room is paid for. Training has started, generally speaking.  I guess I'm on the journey.  The more I look at the future to September, which seems so far away, I keep looking back (which has me looking forward) to a different journey- my road back to employment.

In my previous life, I was a teacher.  I was the be-all-and-end-all crazy kind of teacher.  I would tell people what I did for a living and they looked at me as if I had 2 heads.  See, I taught middle school-- 7th and 8th graders.  And it was MATH!

I was fine stepping away from it to raise my kidlets.  It took 2 or 3 years for me to really get over the depression of being alone.  Alone?  You were with your kids, you say.  True, but there was no adult contact.  Friends were working, family was far away.  I adjusted and was quite happy after a while.  We visited the zoo once a week, took trips to the library, explored in the summer... but I always had the dread looming over my head of needing to go back to work.  The work didn't scare me.  It was the application process, interview process, creating new relationships at the location where I worked.

I hit a roadblock back to "the grind" when I had 3 ear surgeries to fix my hearing.  Hearing wasn't so great anymore.  Now what do I do?  Teaching was out, in my mind, anyway.  Kids have a way of using weaknesses against you in a classroom.  Plus, it is very brain tiring digesting every mumbled word you hear, having to make the garbled words fit the sentence you think you heard.  Well, now that the 3rd surgery is behind me, words seem to be clearer, although my voice is extremely loud in my head when I speak.

In the spring, I had the opportunity to co-coach swimming for kids, roughly 5th graders.  I missed the interaction.  I forgot the humor that they bring.  I cherished their care-free spirit.  The other day, my son came home from school with pre-algebra homework that he was stuck on.  Once again, after helping him out, I realized I missed the math; the ability to translate something difficult into something easier to understand and decipher.

I realized I needed a job.  I was aware I should probably go back to teaching.

But what about Rotterdam?  Hahahahahahahaha!  I don't mean to mislead you.  I am looking to substitute teach.  (Something I swore I would never do!)  I could use the freedom of scheduling to train, I could get my teaching fix and interact with witty middle-schoolers, and hopefully NOT HAVE TO GRADE PAPERS!

So, the journey has turned into looking ahead for the long-term future:  the never-ending searching for past principal's contact information, creatively writing my job summary so it sounds more than just "I created lesson plans, taught, and time/behavior managed.  Or, called parents..." This journey has not been enjoyable.  I never feel good enough or creative enough on paper.  After all, my specialty was math, not writing.  I'm not one to fluff myself up just to wiggle my way into a spot.  But, this is my journey.  Two very different roads going in the same direction, for now.

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