The Waiting is the Hardest Part

A few years ago while watching TV, an episode of Mike and Molly came on that spoke to me. It said what I'd been feeling for a bit.  However, I was too...responsible (that's not the word I want, but I can't find it right now) to do anything about it.  Pragmatic!!  THAT'S the word I mean-Thanks NanoLand FB group. Anyway, here's the scene from that episode that I understood in the depths of my soul:



Do you know how many teachers feel like this?  No, me either, but I'm confident it's a high number.  Higher every year.  So, if I, among many others, feel this way, why am I looking for a teaching position after I've resigned from a teaching job? Security. It's all I know how to do.  I have a mortgage and bills. We need health insurance.  We can't afford for me not to have a job.  

Would I like to be like Molly and start a writing career?  Oh yeah.  But, it doesn't pay at first (maybe not at all), nor does it have a benefits package.  And, that was a TV show.  This is real life.  Real life doesn't play out this this and for that, I'm so disappointed. 

Every year I consider participating in NaNoWriMo, and some years I actually do, and twice I've won.  I have a few stories started, one finished and unedited, and many ideas scattered about.  I love doing it, and now that I seem to have more time on my hands, I may do it again this year. I keep saying I have all this time and that I'm unemployed because I want to get myself used to that.

I have all these applications out there and it seems no one wants to hire me.  The interview with the charter school went well, but I had convinced myself they were going to hire me on the spot, based on prior conversations.  They haven't. I'm now second-guessing everything that happened at the interview.  Was that one thing that she noted in my sample lesson the one thing she'll use to disqualify me?  Will she understand that it was nerves?  How many more are also interviewing?  How will they do?   I hate waiting.  It's torture. 

There are jobs I could apply to that are in a geographic location that I find desirable, but that would mean moving.  Packing and selling the house, finding new housing, and convincing the spouse this is a good idea-those are all difficult things.  Especially the spouse thing. It's not in an area where he wants to go. On the other hand, the places that he would like to move to are not locales I'm interested in at all.  😶

So it's back at it.  More job hunting.  More let-downs.  More self-deprecation. More doubt.   

What Can You Do With a General When He Stops Being a General?

And so this is the question I am asking myself.  This blogger finds herself in a position of everything is possible and nothing is possible, simultaneously. It's a scary, awkward, degrading, awful, depressing, anxious, unnerving, (have I forgotten anything?) feeling. To put it succinctly, it sucks.

I was a teacher for 20 years, more if you count the years I was a teaching assistant.  Seventeen years of that was with the same school district. Last week I turned in my resignation.  It's been some time coming.  It's not how I would have done it, but it's done.

Special Ed is becoming rough, yo.  It's no longer help the children where they are and prepare them for the life ahead with daily living and job skills.  Now it's catch them up to their grade-level peers and let's hope their families pick up the rest. It's no longer teach them where they're at. It's now, force them to fit in these spaces and make our scores look good.  I don't know.  Maybe that's not everywhere.  Maybe just where I was.  But it wasn't always like that, which is what upsets me the most.  The district I left was more concerned about what education looks like rather than what education is.  

I've applied to many job openings still in the field of special education.  I've been interviewed for all but two so far.  I've even had a second interview for two.  Sadly, no offer has been made.  My thoughts: 1-I'm expensive to hire. Twenty years of experience brings a high salary; 2-When they call the school for reference, I'm not spoken of well; 3-I really do suck as a teacher. 

Happily, I do have a phone interview soon for a really cool charter school.  It's arts-based.  Singing and dancing?  Count me in!  

So while friends are going on vacation, taking trips down the shore, Hershey Park, Mexico, etc., I've been scouring the Internet and interviewing for jobs.  I've been working out (having not lost a pound), keeping a fancy journal, knitting, reading, dabbling in BW photography, and starting this blog.  We don't know what we're going to need as far as money in the future so we stick close to home. 

Back-to-school sales have taken on a whole new feeling. 

So that's it. First blog post. Just some stuff about my life at this moment.