Rambling post....sorry.
edit: wow this came out a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.
I spent the majority of my weekend ignoring every responsibility I have.
Let me just put it out there: This is not a wise thing to do.
Saturday was not all bad. I went to our school "Color Fun Run 5K" where I did not run, but threw colored chalk on the kids that did run. Yay look at me being involved. I went over to my parents house to yet again help them pick out carpet. 12 hours later they, of course, had changed their minds, so we could call that useless. The rest of the day definitely was. I spent money I didn't have, watched movies I'd already seen, and ate too much food.
Then came Sunday. Sunday is never a great day for me. It's supposed to be the best day. It used to be the best day. Now it's just gives me too much time to think and dwell on all the bad decisions I've ever made.
Sunday is never a great day.
In an effort to stop
thinking and
dwelling, I random chose a book from my "shelf-of-books-I-haven't-read-yet". It was "
The Selection".
Let me tell you right now that that book is exactly, and I mean
EXACTLY what you think it's going to be.
To be fair, it was been a while since I've read a book that wasn't my textbook. Like, months. So I ate, it, up. I read the whole thing in a matter of hours and despite how predictable it was and how annoyed I was at almost every character, I went on my kindle and bought the sequel.
Stupid kindle.
Today at work I thought I could snap myself out of this stupor, and whoa did I.
I had my evaluation interview with my principal which consisted of me crying in front of her for about 45 minutes about how horribly I was handling my Instructional Assistants, She was very sweet, very kind. I know she believes in me far more than I believe in myself. She gave me some great things to work on and I went back to my classroom still feeling down on myself, but with more confidence that I could do better. I had to duck into the bathroom on the way back and splash water all over my face, but that still did nothing to hide the genetically-induced-blotchy-face that showed I had been crying. (seriously, I even think about crying and BAM! it's all over) Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on paperwork (endless paperwork, ohmygoodness I am killing so many trees, why) and when I came home I should have worked on my project that is due on Thursday. Did I do that? Pft no.
I ate a big dinner, played games on my phone, put in a load of laundry and went right back to ignoring my life by reading the next book in the Selection series called "The Elite".
After I finished this second book (yes, I finished it), I kinda sat in my bed staring at the wall, listening to my bunny hop around under my bed and trying to find the incentive to go work on my homework or at least, you know,
do something.
Already twice while I've been sitting here typing up this post, I've gone on youtube and watched videos.
My leg won't stop tapping and there is a pile of unfolded laundry on my bed and an elliptical machine sitting
literally one foot away from me and yet I still am unmotivated to accomplish anything.
I mean, this side of last week I was bringing paperwork home with me and studying for my test and answering parent emails and now...nothing
It's like, I'm good at accomplishing things up to a certain level, But if suddenly there is just one thing too many I shut down and my brain is like NOPE. But that can't happen any more. I have responsibilities. I have people depending on me. I have a career and a path for my life and stopping in the middle of everything doesn't work anymore. Maybe I could pull it off at Interstate when literally nothing mattered to me, or maybe even while I was an IA where I had so few real responsibilities...but not now. It can't happen now.
After my meeting with my principal, I went out to the preschool trailer to ask another preschool teacher something, and we ended up commiserating about working with hard IA's. One of them said "You know, it's never going to be perfect. You'll probably always be working with at least one person who is just hard to get along with." I almost started crying again.
I remember the first teacher I worked with, and how when I told her I was going into the Early Childhood Special Ed program, she was excited for me, but she also said "Make sure it's what you really want...you have to get a whole other degree to teach any grade levels." At the time it wasn't really about what I wanted, it was about what was available to me, and on some level I did want it. I do want it. I want to teach kids. I want to work with kids. Work with other adults....it's really hard. It's not something I really thought about when I "signed up". I really want to work with my little autistic preschoolers...but I
really want to work with older kids. and I
really want to work with typically developing kids. And I
really want a lot things I don't have.
Many times over the past few months I've found myself very content with my life, with who I am and where I'm at. But I still get pulled down into this depression every once in a while and it's like my mission all over again and bleck, I want to wipe that out of my mind but every Sunday I think about it again and again, and how is that every going to stop?