back to teaching // my initial reaction in Sept 2018

NOTE: I wrote this blog post back in September 2018 — a few days after returning to the teaching profession. Some context: I was months into the hardest, toughest, anxiety-ridden battle of my life. I had been waitressing, I just broke up with my then boyfriend, and I was seeing a number of different therapist to help me with my anxiety and OCD that was flaring up something awful.

Little did I know at the time I wrote all I wrote in the post below that going BACK TO TEACHING would save my life in countless ways. It was the plan all along. My nana knew it in the picture I took below — with the “R” for ROSE (her name) right there front and center. I am so grateful I was led back…but that gratitude took time. Here’s what feelings came first…

My classroom rug is cute, right? Let's start with that...and the fact that I only noticed I was standing directly in front of the 'R' for ROSE after I took this picture. My nana was named Rose. She passed in 2002, but I'll take this as a sign that she's with me on this crazy, wild ride (...and I'll take all the help I can get).

You guys: I NEVER thought I'd be back. 

The last time I taught was five years ago, and since June 2013, I've attended graphic design school, created two paper lines for We R Memory Keepers, worked for me & my BIG ideas helping launch The Happy Planner® and build it's community of #plannerbabes, attended conferences and trade shows on behalf of the company, quit in the summer of 2017 when it was no longer the right fit, came up with a product of my own I feel I could launch (if only I could figure out how to get it manufactured and turned into a purchasable thing), got back into waitressing to help pay dem bills while trying to figure it out, and spent the whole of this last year trying to land on what should come next. 

Might I also add that in the past year, as a 33-year-old waitress with a Masters Degree, I was experiencing the unravelling of my relationship with John (who I thought I was going to marry) that I could not stop or control, and yet another wave of some of the greatest anxiety of my life. 

It's been tough on me, but again - not in the way that I feel I have any right to complain about it - because overall I'm healthy and objectively I have a good life.

I'm optimistic, but I. AM. LOST. I. AM. STRUGGLING. I don't have it all (ummm...anything?) figured out. I'm not the girl you should follow to know how to 'do life right' or 'carpe diem' or whatever.  I'm just Amanda, and I've been really sad lately. 

But even in the sadness, I am called to share, called to show up here and write about it, write specifically to YOU - because I feel it might help if you're looking for something other than the highlight reel. ...if you are also a little lost. ...if you are where you are and it isn't at all what you expected. ...if you're in that season of life where you can't fully identify with everyone's bright, shiny smiles on the internet. ...if you can't see yourself in any of the activities that take up your day. ...if you try to express this to the people around you but nobody understands. ...if you're trying to make the best of it anyway, but every minute feels like a fight. ...if you haven't discovered yet where you belong. 

I am still trying to discover where I belong. Where the eff do I belong?!?!

On my ride home the other day, I was thinking about the game Chutes & Ladders. All the game is is rolling the dice and moving your pawn spaces. Sometimes you land on a space with a ladder, and you get to advance ahead on the game board.  Sometimes you land on a space with a chute, and you have to slide back on the game board, as if all the progress you made was null & void. 

My decision to go back into teaching has felt like a chute. My sister thinks this is ridiculous and all I need is a change in perspective. Maybe she's right. She even referenced this video, and sure, I can dig it. My brain feels stuck, though. My brain won't let me put it down. 'It' being the never-endingness of teaching, the to-do lists that keep getting longer, the need to figure out what to teach the kids overlapping on top of teaching the kids.

I'm back to teaching. I'm back on this treadmill too fast for my body. It's taking everything I have, but I feel like none of me is showing up. Does that make sense? It exactly describes it. 

But I expected this. I've been here before. (Duh, Amanda.) I knew what it would be like. I needed a shake up in my routine, I needed some stability and structure back into my life, so here I am. I'm older. ...and wiser? I should be able to understand this and power through.

But I've been SO SAD. It's been hard to shake. 

I had the interview for the job the day after Awesome Ladies Live, and couldn't turn down the job when I was offered it (or maybe I could have), and then two weeks later was the first day of school. I had to prep the room by day and finish my waitressing shifts by night...I was exhausted. Might I add that John stopped talking to me (which makes sense when two people are no longer together) but my codependency flared up, and in all the unfamiliar territory I was craving 'my person'. 

All these changes happened so fast. I've been dealing with all of them alone. My mom and sister scooped me up and out of my apartment last weekend to break the obsessive loop I was stuck in and the emotional breakdown I was having, but how often can they 'rescue' me from myself? It's unfair to put that on them. I need to get a handle on this. 

I think it's a many-layered thing. I think it's fair to call some of this grief. The feelings over losing John just two months ago caught up with me I guess, and only just now have really started to hit me. I also think the overwhelming, unstructured, incessant nature of what teaching in the New York City Department of Education is like contributes to my feelings of stress & overwhelm as well.  However, I also think the compromised way my brain works - as a result of my anxiety disorder and what I've discovered this year is (and has always been) a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder  - is a major piece of this puzzle. 

So, on a hopeful note: I'm aware of the many layers. I'm doing my best to address each one in their own time. I might freak out a bit in between, but overall, I think I'm learning and getting better. Even in what might feel like a chute, I'm progressing, aren't I? (I hope so.)

Sometimes (all the time) I get nervous about making big decisions. Every bone in my body is scared that the wrong decision could derail my entire life - take me so far off the 'track' that I could never get back. However, I read somewhere recently that each decision is just a different way to get to the same outcome... not to worry, that we are still being led to where we need to be. I want to believe that. 

PERSEVERANCE, dear friends. In reference to the video my sister mentioned, I feel like life's been hitting me hard, blow after blow, but it's not about how hard we're hit...it's about how hard we get hit, and can keep on moving forward. (I might as well embed the video. See below.)

I gotta KEEP MOVING FORWARD. Just take blow after blow and KEEP. MOVING. FORWARD. That's what I'm going to take away from writing this post.

I'm also going to do my best to work in space throughout my week to connect to the part of me that comes alive - when I'm writing for this site, or designing something for you girls to print and use, or hosting the podcast, or dancing, or spending time with family... ...these things tend to get lost, but I know it's so important that I make room for them, no matter what other obligations might try to push them to the bottom of the priority list. God, that happens, doesn't it?  Yeah, it does.

...so does feeling lost. It happens. So does feeling out of place: belonging somewhere one minute, and not belonging somewhere the next.

But I'm back to teaching. And for now, I'm in it. I don't plan on talking about it much after this, just put my head down and get through it. The kids in my class are pretty cute, so there's that. I just miss things, I guess. This big transition's left gaps in places. It feels 'not real' but also 'too real'.  I'm lost and I'm struggling, but I'm also showing up as I am. It's the only thing I know how to do. I welcome you to do the same. 

Thank you for reading. xoxo