Coming out of Retirement

A year ago I resigned from my teaching position. If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know what kind of a year I had then. It was a time in my life where I felt that I absolutely had to reconnect with my husband and children in a way that would require me to leave my job. Leaving a teaching job is risky business. You never know if you will every be able to get another teaching job because teaching jobs are hard to come by in the first place. However, it was a risk that I had to take to ensure that I got my family back on track. My husband truly gets all the credit in this story. Even though we couldn't really afford for me to quit, he supported me. A year later, we certainly have our family back on track, which is the most important thing to us.

I love, love, love being home all day with my girls. We have had the best of times. Guess what though? Throughout the whole year I have still had a neverending flow of teaching ideas. You just can't stop that stuff when you have taught your entire adult life. I have spent my entire adult life with second and third graders. They all hold a special place in my heart at that age....even the weird ones. Trust me, folks, there are some weird ones. There is also an abundance of difficult second and third graders. Who knew? Despite the quirkiness of that age group, they are so lovable. Kids this age generally love school, and I have never grown out of loving school.

Now that the family is back on track and reconnected, it is time to get our finances in control. My real estate income is unpredictable. It has gotten us through this year....barely. I like helping people buy and sell their home and don't plan on quitting anytime soon. We just aren't in a place yet where I can stay home and not make a regular paycheck every two weeks. I began thinking more and more about school and my classroom. I made a phone call and the rest is history. To make a long story short, I got my old position back. I learned a lesson in the process. The year I resigned was my worst year ever in the classroom for reasons that I don't care to EVER blog about. I felt absolutely awful about myself. Since my brain is just like this, I started to feel like I shouldn't even teach anymore. But I'm not going to lie, I felt so different this past week after the overwhelming response from various school staff members and parents that they were thrilled to have me back. I have had multiple people say they are so glad to see me come back because they believe it is "my calling." They believe I have a gift with the kiddos, and yes, even the parents.

Is it possible to have a calling in life, but to feel mixed feelings about parts of it? If it were just about the kids and the parents, I may be more inclined to say maybe it is my calling. However, there are parts of the job that really stress me out. Then again, aren't all adults stressed out by their jobs on some level? Deep thoughts for another day, I guess!

All I know is that as soon as I knew they were giving me my job back, I immediately sat down with a notebook and wrote pages of ideas on the spot about things to do in my classroom. That is a good sign. I was pretty emotional about not being financially able to stay home with my girls anymore, but now I am feeling some excitement.

It is like my past just met up with my future and said, "Hey, remember me? Get back here."

Life is just so weird.