I Can’t Even

I can’t do it.  I just can’t. Not right now.  I’ve tried, but it is just not in me right now.  What am I struggling with? School. I’ve taught kindergarten for eight years and this is the FIRST time that, at this point in the summer, my classroom has not been re-organized and my next year plans have not been started.  I haven’t even cleaned out my binder yet. I “tore down” my room according to my school’s policy, took my shit home and haven’t looked back. I am one solid month into summer and I’ve done almost nothing. I did weed through a TON of emails a few weeks ago, but it just gave me anxiety so I shut down my computer and ignored it.  

While I am not happy with this situation, I am not surprised.  I experienced a level of burnout this year that I never thought I could experience this early in my teaching career.  A level that I have always imagined would come after 20 years in the classroom and then I’d just retire and move on. I am pretty happy with one aspect of how this year went: my students had a great year.  They grew academically and socially like I’ve never seen in my eight years. I’m not sure how I did it, but I took all of my personal struggles and stuffed them in a box every morning when I got out of my car.  I put on a fake smile and plowed through each day with as much energy as I could muster. I missed a few meetings and probably wasn’t very helpful to my various committees, but my students got the teacher they deserved. 

I cannot say the same for my family and friends.  Most evenings were spent on the couch with a heating pad.  Many weekends were spent trying to catch up on sleep and work for the following week.  My husband took on nearly all of my normal household duties and helped me with the ones he didn’t take over. I didn’t go see my Mom nearly enough and was not a very responsive friend.  By Christmas break, I wanted to quit teaching and I knew something was wrong.

As hard as the first half of the year was, the second half got even harder.  I won’t go into the diagnosis process here, but let’s just say it became even more difficult to focus on school and my students.  I have to say, though, that MY STUDENTS and my devotion to them kept me going for those difficult months. THEY were the reason I was able to get out of bed and forget my troubles for 8 hours each day.  

If you know me, you know that the quickest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t.  I have never backed down from a challenge before. It is probably more of a curse than a blessing, honestly.  So it was extremely difficult for me when I told my principal that I wanted to go back to half time teaching. It’s not that I can’t do full time, it’s that I don’t want to.  I don’t want to teach two classes – even if I were 100% healthy. I want to have a life outside of school. I have places to see, things to do and people in my life I want to enjoy spending time with.    My RA just highlighted the need to focus on myself a bit. I don’t know what my future holds health wise. Will I evade disability for 5 – 10 – 20 years? I don’t know, but I’m not taking chances.

So here I am, mid-summer. I’ve been to Tucson to see my son, to Hawaii for a wonderful vacation and to Phoenix to help my daughter move. I have more fun plans for the next 6 weeks too, concerts, baseball games, hiking, paddle boarding and hopefully a trip to spend time with my best friend.  I am completely at peace with teaching halftime next year. The perfectionist in me is FREAKING OUT that I’ve done nothing for school yet, so I should probably make some plans to start eating that elephant. But for today, I’m giving myself permission to let it go a little longer. It will still be there when I’m ready.