I’m here, I’m writing.
I’ve got a new job.
I’m an inclusion special education teacher in an elementary school. its not something I’ve ever done before and the learning curve is steep and constant. I’m weaning myself off of panic and into resignation, slowly. I will figure it out, I will, even if it gets bumpy along the way. And I’m getting paid in a way that still makes me cry when I get a paycheck, because maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it.
I work with a lot of people for the second year in a row. If you read this, and then see me? … goddammit, don’t tell me about it. I get all wigged out in a very weird, flattered but scared sort of way. like, its a lot of pressure to have people that you walk by in a hallway talk about something you wrote, or last year, even heard a tale about a deep dive into the blog. which is terrifying, because ‘what the hell did i write?!’ and gaaaah.
and on the other hand, I love it. I do. Because I am now, still, in a job where it is easy to be unknown. Before schools, I was working in a high tunnel with a thousand chickens, or a hundred spinach plants. They never really made me nervous about how I was seen, or how my thoughts were received. And now there are so many people and my clothes are weird, my inner dialogue is definitely off-center, and I don’t know at all how to be authentic and still keep my job and that self-off-centeredness. (not selfish, or self-absorbed, but self-centered in the midst of a crazy whirlpool of things. It is a wonderful and normal thing to want to be seen for who you actually are. Right?
RIGHT?
my two eldest kids are not here. they are off in their lives, and the shift in identity is fierce and with me all the time. what am I, if mom is not the title I hear most? the remaining child, my lovely thirteen year old, is adjusting to life as an almost-only child. the grocery list and I are sudden enemies, as the size and portion of things makes for too many leftovers and I don’t know how to handle it. And while I appreciate the wild cut to my grocery bill quite a bit, it makes me want to cry on the regular.
these are the things. and i read my friend cynthia lee over at substack and she just forced herself to sit down, and so here i am, forcing myself to sit down and write it.
its Sunday, my takeclasses and teachmyselfeverything school day, so the laptop is in my lap anyhow. and its been too long. I’m still writing in my head all the time, so why not clear some space in there, and make it a tangible thing?
although, is it tangible if there is no physical thing? meh. no, i don’t know.
I do love you, in general, and specifically. Take care. Put on another sweater maybe, and I’ll be forcing myself to sit down here again soon.
