Being my first proper job (I don’t really count the horsey jobs, waitressing or bar work as real jobs) this is the only ‘career’ I’ve actually resigned from. It’s certainly the first time where I haven’t anywhere or anything else definite to go on to. It’s terrifying; in my last week of teaching I am teetering ever closer to the brink.....all too soon I will no longer be able to call myself a teacher...I feel like I am about to lose a major part of my identity. What will I say when people ask me what I do? What will I fill in on forms where I am asked to state my occupation? Will horse wife wash with the bank manager when I need to extend my overdraft?
Every year the teachers long for the summer holiday as much if not more so than the children, and yet they also look forward to the next academic year with its new students, new challenges and new subjects to teach. This year I am left out of all this, by choice of course - I chose to resign. And yet I am clinging on to the sides for dear life, like I’m about to fall overboard; I don’t want to leave the safety of the ship I call school. It’s been my life, my family and my routine for so long that I cannot seem to comprehend a life outside.
The end of term atmosphere compounds my inner terror. While the children wind down, kept calm with their favourite games or DVDs, the teachers run around frantically preparing for the next academic year; new set lists need to be compiled, new timetables written and new books allocated to new classes. The last few weeks of term require a final burst of energy from staff in charge of these tasks; the final push to ensure their completion before we too, can escape for the summer. Only this year I feel somewhat like Cinderella whilst these preparations go on around me; colleagues’ excitement and anxiety about what September will bring to their classroom buzzes throughout the department. I watch, an impartial observer; a fly on the wall. People comment ‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that, do you?’ meaning to be kind but compounding my feelings of emptiness and exclusion. I feel left out of it all; the odd one. Discombobulated. It reminds me of those horrible times as a child, knowing you would be last to be picked for the team. Feeling like nobody wants you to be part of their game.
I know that these feelings are totally irrational and yet I am unable to halt their progress. I’ve felt physically unwell this week end; overwhelmed with exhaustion I space- walked around the house as if my mind was not attached to my body. I snapped at my husband more often than usual; resenting his absorption in his own work, I became a petulant child demanding his attention. He thinks my physical state is due to stress; maybe he’s right. Maybe I've just fallen victim to one of the prevalent, persistent bugs which seem to circumnavigate the curriculum constantly. If someone were to offer me my old job back, in my terrified desperate state, I’d probably accept; in fact if anyone is listening, I'll take anything...cleaner....caretaker...cook...please just let me stay...
In reality, I know that I have to get through my last week without going into emotional meltdown. I must say goodbye to colleagues, to classes and to friends. I have last lessons to oversee and my last supper to attend. I am on the brink of the end of an era.....I just wish I had the next one mapped out more clearly.....
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