March 21, 2016

A day I will never forget even though sometimes I really want to.

It was a day I felt coming for a while before that but didn’t really hit me as reality until it happened.

What happened?

I lost my job… and my career.

The reasons why are something only a handful of people know and a story I may tell here at a future date.

Well let me begin the story during the time seven years ago when I was a successful school principal, but deep down inside, honestly I really wasn’t satisfied with my job, career path, and overall life.

I just simply wasn’t happy.

And simply put, life as a principal… SUCKS!

And if you don’t believe me, just ask any principal what is their job like and if they love it. Those of us who are and have been in “The Chair” will tell you that we love the job because we can “impact children in a school-wide setting in a daily basis.”

Typical educator response. In educator language.

But behind closed doors we all will say how much we loathe the job for reasons I won’t get into here because that’s not what this post is about.

Well I lost my job, and immediately I thought to myself: “WHAT THE F@&$#K AM I GOING TO DO NOW WITH MY LIFE?!” I was sad, suicidal (yes I said it.. and it was the truth) depressed, overcome with feelings of failure and inadequacy (or as my therapist had me think about, “the imposter syndrome”)…etc., the whole nine, because at that point, I had spent the last 22 years in education and didn’t know much else to do. And while I didn’t start out to be a teacher and eventually a school administrator, I was very good at it.

Again, another post for another time.

Well the universe sometimes puts you in very unexpected situations and on very unexpected paths. I should have left that job a year before that day but due to my fear of change and failure, I stayed.

In my school, I had parents who didn’t speak English and I was at the start of my journey with learning Spanish. I would try to talk to them, they would try to talk to me. One day, before this date of course, I thought to myself, “I could teach English instead of doing this.” But because the life of a principal is a busy one, I didn’t have the time to take the CELTA certification course. But I did go to the open house at Teaching House Chicago to get more information. And I did keep thinking about doing it… if I ever got the time.

Well, the universe gave me the time in a very forceful way.

Or that’s what I tell myself.

When I first told my dad that I lost my job, after I first stopped at my fraternity brother’s office, and after calling another frat brother on the way to the other one’s office (he was third because I honestly didn’t know what to say to him, feeling like such a failure, and also I was afraid of what he would say), he asked me what I was going to do and when I told him what I was planning on doing, he honestly didn’t agree with it. Told me to just find a teaching position or another assistant principal position while I looked again for another principal position. To be honest I didn’t want to do it and I told him so. Told him if I took another teaching job, or even another school administrator position, the minute I set foot in the classroom or in the school I would be so miserable I would want to kill myself. Seriously. But he was a person who valued stability and reasoned with me that a steady job is more important than going on a “whim” to do this “teaching English thing” which also to him didn’t pay much money nor provide much opportunity of furthering my career path.

Once I got home, he asked me again what I was going to do. I don’t remember if I answered or not, only that I went to my room feeling like the world just ended. I wanted to run away, hide, disappear, and ultimately die. Overwhelmed and overcome with feelings I sat at my desk, with the feeling that for the first time in my life I was truly lost.

Well after some time, I don’t remember how long but it was the same day, I remembered that I wanted to take the CELTA course and maybe pursue teaching English as a foreign language. This included the thought that I could open my own language center and teach people in Chicago English whose first language wasn’t English. So I went on the website to see if there was another cohort coming up, and sure enough, there was one starting the following week. I filled out the form and they immediately contacted me (they were in a hurry to fill the cohort as it was starting soon and they didn’t have enough to fill the cohort and if they didn’t, they would have to cancel it). I thought to myself, this must be a sign from the universe that this just happened to be available at this moment in time.

So I told my dad what I was planning to do and he again wasn’t thrilled about it, honestly. He reiterated his thought that I should just go find a teaching position or an assistant principal position and work my way back up and back into the profession. Things didn’t look so bleak to him as they did for me. But I stuck to my idea…because truthfully, I felt like I had no other choice or option.

So where am I going with this post…um…story?

Good question.

Most of my writings contain some type of witty story with an ending that wraps up my inner thoughts while sometimes invoking thoughts of your own. This time, this tale was different in the way that I am sharing something truly personal and that has affected me (read: hurt me) greatly over the years. So while I have had much to say about this, I don’t know how to end it. Probably an ending for now, one that I can “live with”, is that through it all I’ve survived. I’ve survived the hurt, pain, feelings of rejection, inadequacy, failure, etc. and that thinking about it, things didn’t turn out so bad at times in the years since that day. I have managed to reinvent myself and find my new niche in teaching English and even rediscovered my love of teaching. If also had a few successes along the way and taught countless numbers of students in a foreign country in Colombia, South America who have enjoyed me both as their teacher as well as my classes.

And I wouldn’t trade many of those experiences and the new ones I am experiencing for the world. I can admit to myself that they have affected me in so many positive ways, and have truly changed me as a person and how I see things now in life.

But that by no means I have forgotten what happened that day as well as the two weeks leading up to it.

That also is another post for another day.

What I know is that I would like to be able to let these thoughts go, release the pain of the memories, and be ok. I have to do it. No, I MUST do it. I must rid myself of these thoughts and memories that have haunted me for years and continue to haunt me to this day. Both for my mental and physical health as well as my overall sanity.

I know it will take time, but I hope I will get there.

But for now, trying to think positively, I’ll just say…

“I’m ok…I think”.