Thanksgiving Break

Every day I try to open my apartment with my classroom key. I pull staplers out of my backpack and slinkys out of my pockets. When I open google docs, I automatically open the detention submission form when I’m looking for something else. Everything I do, therefore, is a confirmation that teaching has completely taken over my life.

I used to take for granted how wonderful it was to only worry about my education—and no one else’s. The first month of teaching has been really, really, really hard, and I increasingly realize that I had no idea what it meant to be a teacher. I work longer hours, juggle more things mentally, and perform more impromptu public speaking than I had ever thought myself capable of.

My life here is so completely different than I had imagined. The school year is flying by, and yet I ask myself, how the hell am I going to make it until May? I do feel pretty isolated, and sometimes it feels like my life is simply back-and-forth—school-to-home-and-back-once-more. A sprint to Friday. A short breath in until Monday.

As a solace, I imagine Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, summer break, and life-post-TFA. Not exactly positive thinking, huh? I can’t get over the feeling that I’m in an interim period, even though I’m getting increasingly settled in every day.

I know the route to school like the back of my hand. I’ve developed a mental map of fast food and Target locations; I’ve slipped into a routine rather naturally. But I can’t deny that when I get home and slip off my watch—a new acquisition for teaching—I wish that time could stop dictating my life. I work more than I should, sleep less than I should, and carefully budget the minutes of every step of the day: will I make it to school on-time? Give students enough time to access their lockers? Enough time to complete the short writing assignment? Enough time to share with a partner, to take the exit ticket, to clean up their materials, to learn the material? I carefully budget time, endlessly, ceaselessly, so that I am ever so cognizant of the fact that I do not have enough time. Never enough.

Sometimes it feels as though the days drag on and on and on and then the weeks fly by. I keep hearing, “If you can make it to Thanksgiving, you can survive this year.” Well, I sure hope Thanksgiving will arrive quickly.

Currently I’m squeezing in doctor appointments, searching for a couch, slipping in a few last beach days before fall completely sets in, planning a unit, reorganizing seating charts, searching for vocab words, and scouting out flights home for Christmas. It feels like a maze of tasks that I am doomed to leave unfinished.

Yet, I try to reassure myself. My tummy has calmed down a bit as I head to school; my body has accustomed itself (mostly) to standing for long periods; my voice is gaining endurance; my nerves and confidence are learning to withstand the threat of teenage comments. Gradually, gradually I am becoming used to this new life of mine. How I hope that my teaching will show these steps forward and feel increasingly "right."

51 days. That’s all that stands between me and my supposed guaranteed survival as a first-year teacher.

But who’s counting the days, right?

Week One, Check

I crawled up the mountain. Asking myself all the while, why are you doing this? I listened to this song, and as the sun glinted off the redwood trees and the sea breeze beckoned, my bitterness abated—slightly. Ever since I’ve been in California, traffic jams have followed me like the plague—unexplained and unwanted. It’s like you cross an invisible line and suddenly cars are moving again, and the forces of the universe have decided to finish tormenting you for awhile. I never knew how much of a leg workout driving could be until I came to California and sat in just-slightly-moving-almost-stand-still traffic for an hour.

Driving and dealing with traffic has become such a huge part of my lifestyle here. I have so much thinking time in the car, and as the traffic jam came to a conclusion in the Santa Cruz mountains, my euphoria kicked in suddenly, as it is wont to do. The drive became like a game, with fast twists and turns, my grin broadening as my stomach did tiny flips. Closer, closer, and then yes—there she was: the ocean once more.

It’s not until I see the ocean that it ever really hits me that I’m here, in California. I mean, there are moments when I’m paying exorbitant amounts for gas and find a compost bin at an eatery and hear someone say “look it!” that it all comes together. But it’s really on the beach that my new home hits me, like being knocked over, breath gone, eyes wide, soaking the impact in.

Saturday was just what I needed after a long, long, long first week at school.

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I couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning, the chill of the night air pervading my room and shoving aside remnants of my wispy dreams as I checked my phone again—not quite yet. I hadn’t believed people when they said you often didn’t sleep the night before school begins as a teacher. And yet there I was, anxious, worried I would oversleep and begin the school year even more foolishly than I already anticipated.

I finally arose from bed, certainly not refreshed, nauseous, anxious, and groggy. As I rushed to school, it was impossible to ignore the long list of things that could go horribly, horribly wrong. I continued to picture that scary being, “my students,” a collective, intimidating force to be reckoned with. I opened the door to let them enter my room, shaking, flustered, feeling clammy and inadequate. A laugh almost rose up, in response to the thought of how I used to take the first day of school for granted, worrying about what I would wear rather than what I would teach.

My students didn’t do me in, though they certainly tested me again and again during my first week. It was a silent series of battles to see how far I could be pushed, how gullible and lenient I am, how much I would enforce the rules I spouted off. Again and again I stuck it out, feeling unsure of myself, braving some conjured up confidence.

My lesson planning has become a little easier, both as my confidence has lost a bit of its shakiness and my audience has gained an identity. Teaching is so….different, so much more difficult than I had ever anticipated. My mind nearly implodes under the weight of so many things to remember and do and enforce and teach. Frequently I just collapse on the ground after my last round of students rush out—exhausted and drained.

I’m learning, growing, struggling, persevering. Same old, same old. Just moving forward, relentlessly.

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Life here makes me question what is next, what is next, what is next? A litany of possibilities and questions and uncertainties, both about the immediate future and two years down the line. Teaching is great and horrible and one of the most rigorous challenges I have yet undergone. Perhaps it is a source of comfort now, then, to consider what lies ahead.

I never imagined that I would feel at such a loss for the perfect job for me. I find myself wondering “If not teaching, then….”

That said, California has welcomed me in and there does exist that un-confronted possibility that this may be it—the place I really settle down in, the home I’ve been searching for, the job I love, the permanent “future” that eludes me.

Things continue to fall into place—my apartment, bed, car, classroom, local grocery store, target, going out places, relationships, bills, etc. My adult identity is being built from the ground up, one payment and tedious to-do checked off a long list. Per usual, I look at the past with idealism, romanticizing it, missing it, seeking refuge in it when tired and rather defeated.

To my utmost, I am trying to enjoy the here and now. Reveling in small joys and sunny days and positive interactions with students. Life is settling down, smoothing out into a busy, busy routine.

Here I am. A college graduate, teacher, adult, Californian resident.