Maybe I’m delusional.
November 11th was the last time I opened this page. My always-unmanicured fingers danced across flat, black keys with pragmatic haste for just five and a half sentences. My peripheral cognition went on about the 47th President-Elect, only to remember that I am not an expert analyst, nor am I someone who wants to fuel the space of internet reactivity.
No, I’d much rather ramble on about my own personal musings, though I do not feel like much of an expert in these arenas either. In fact, I feel quite the opposite as of late, which feels like the wrong direction to be moving in. Shouldn’t my “paths of self-discoveries” have found their way throughout the last decade or so? Why do I spend hours a week actually considering reinventing the pillars that construct who I currently am?
Of course, I like education. I enjoy being a teacher. But is that enough to carry me through the next 30 working years? Am I supposed to be okay with limited growth opportunities and insulting paystubs? Should I have listened to Tom Doran, my secondary teaching mentor in 2013, when he asked whether or not this is what I really wanted to do?
“Are you sure this is what you want to do? You know you’ll never make any money.”
“But who needs money? Everyone here seems fine! You own homes. You have families. You’re cared for. Isn’t that enough?”
Sure, that is enough, but what if it isn’t? I work at work. I work at home. I work for hours outside of working hours. I think about work when I’m not at work. I have a laundry list of things to do, but being prepared for school the next day comes before almost all of them. The words “thank you” are muttered only rarely. I lament often. I make excuses. I search for positives. I believe in the positives. I keep going because of the positives. But I want to be more. Wasn’t I searching for more? Why did I go to grad school? For more opportunities? Those opportunities are not universal. They don’t exist in France the same way they did in the United States. Or maybe they do, but how am I supposed to find them when the pressure of tomorrow is always occupying me? How am I supposed to have a baby, redefine my professional self, run a marathon PR, learn French, be a financial contributor, a wife, a friend, a dog mom, sleep, and be?
This sounds whiny. I am whining. I have worked my ass off—I have! I have worked really hard to be the teacher I am proud to be. I have been blessed in my career and within education. I’ve taught amazing kiddos, experimented with instructional practices, failed, learned, and tried again. I’ve met some of my absolute favorite people within the walls of schools. And maybe I am delusional, but I don’t know that it is supposed to feel this cumbersome. That does not mean that I think life should be easy, that my life is difficult, or that I am blind to my privilege and good fortune.
I live a charmed little life — “the dream” — as people keep reminding me.
“You can have a baby whenever you want!”
“If you don’t like something, change it!”
“Just focus on the positive!”
And I feel like an awful person for saying to myself, “Hey, I wonder about X.” Or, “Maybe things would be different if Y.” It’s like having a healthy flow of self-reflection somehow means I am failing as an educator. Where is my grit? Where is my commitment to future generations? Does this have anything to do with education at all, or is this a me problem?
Big picture, I do think my thirty-three-and-a-half-year-old self is going through something here. Here, in France. Here, in my career. Here, in life, with the elephants and the hammering in my chest that tells me I have not done enough and am not doing enough by my own measures. I’m displeased with my physique, yet I am eating chocolate at 10 o’clock in the morning because food restriction is a ghost of the past. I want to learn French, yet the most I can muster is a few measly attempts at practicing per week. I want to be a parent, but I want to enjoy my time. I want it all, and I do not think that is impossible; I just need to be better.
Woof.
In other news, it took me 35 minutes to locate only most of the ingredients required to bake Christmas cookies. I used to be someone who baked often. I want to be someone who bakes, yet I had built up the mere task of going to the grocery store and searching for molasses (which went unfound) and brown sugar (there was only one variety to speak of). That being said, the cookies did turn out nicely, and I was happy to feel a tiny part of myself remember who she was, even though I was quite rusty, measuring my butter incorrectly, not pre-reading all steps of the recipe, etc. Regardless, I will call it a small win and take what I can get.
Additionally, 2024 is on its way out, and boy, have my reflections on the “Highs and Lows” of my year been heavy on my mind, as a year it has been.
I’ll have to save those for next time, though.
