This Too Shall Pass

I woke up yesterday thinking it was Saturday! I took out Francis for his morning bathroom routine and made coffee to sit in my favorite yard chair when mom asked, “are you not going in to work today?”  I still felt quite certain my mom had her days wrong and I annoyingly said, “It’s Saturday.” Sure enough, she broke the truth and I had to rush and get ready to make my drive to school…  In my world I constantly hear of peers that are retiring or changing job careers during this pandemic and I keep telling myself keep hustling these next few months – survive things will get better.  We have been told that maybe in January we will go back to complete in person instruction… So, more normal days are in view.

This past week, I took a mental health day because I was seriously so overwhelmed and the next morning I had a message from one of my students asking if I would be at school otherwise he wouldn’t attend.  Aww, he missed me!  Then last week I sacrificed my lunch to have the Student Council students tie dye their shirts and one of them caught me before my next period and said, “Thank you, I really needed that.”  I was going over with a friend how these days I feel so overwhelmed and how these two kids were small victories and she said- just imagine all the ones that feel the same way, but don’t express it. 

I have this perfectionist complex also known as atychiphobia that makes everything so much more challenging because I want everything to go according to my expectation and these days I feel like a failure almost every day because every day things go wrong. The internet goes out, my shared documents don’t work when students try to open, my in-person students are quicker at working than my online and get bored while we wait for everyone to finish, and my discomfort of being in front of a camera hasn’t gotten any better…  I even hate the drive home these days because all of my home exits are under construction so traffic gets really backed up.  At a stretch that should take me ten minutes to travel I average thirty minutes on a good day.

Then I get home and I am fried.  I feel like I use all my creativity to make learning fun that when I get home I just want to sit still. Sure, I see projects that I can do, but sitting still usually wins.  LUCKILY, things are starting to go back to normal and now I can go to weekly Bible study.  Like my student needed that social aspect of tie dying I too need my weekly dose of faith sharing.  It so comforting to be with others and vent in a creative way, not as a form of complaining, but a way to validate that what we are experiencing due to the effects of the pandemic is unprecedented.  I find comfort in being reminded that I haven’t lost anyone close due to the virus, that I still have a job and all my basic necessities are met and that this too shall pass…

Discerment

 I went on a half day discernment retreat this past Saturday.  Though the discernment was about whether I want to continue in the Franciscan path, I was able to think about my vocation.  I am single, been so for most of my life, but I do want to get married and have children.  I was telling my sponsor that weddings don’t make me jealous, what does cause a tingle of envy in me are baby showers.  When I attend baby showers I feel like there’s a joy that I might never experience and sometimes I feel this sadness inside my heart.

My sponsor said that maybe I am called to motherhood and that unsettling feeling is just a push from the Holy Spirit.  I told her my child bearing years are coming-to-a-close and that I might never fulfil that desire.  Then she told me that she didn’t get pregnant until ten years after she was married at the age of forty-three. Having her son was one of the happiest moments of her life especially after waiting for him for so long.  Not wanting to have an only child she and her husband adopted a daughter.  I needed her testimony because when I put limitations on God, He is full of surprises and the stories of others help me see that the world is full of His miracles.

Lately, I have been so focused on my job because it tends to pull all of me towards it.  I mean I work with students that need me and I can get so consumed by that need that I forget there are other areas of my life.  Then with the drastic effects of Covid I feel so utterly guzzled up that I have little energy for anything else.  After a day of hectic hybrid teaching I just want to vegetate in front of my TV to drown my thoughts with doggy smooches - no longer be on call to anyone. Even then, my phone will beep with a message from one or two students who need help.  I didn’t think it would take only two years for me to feel so burned out!

Yet, feeling so utterly consumed by my job, I realize that while I love my job (most days) I would give it up in a minute if I was given the opportunity to be a wife and a mother.  After God granting me what I asked him for, with this job I realized that there might be a another calling for me because deep in me I desire a family of my own.  I am not sure how this will come to fruition, me being such an introvert, but I know that God laughs in the face of impossibility.               

New Experiences

I took my nephew to his first day of high school this past week.  He was so nervous he skipped breakfast and when I asked him about his first day, he told me that he couldn’t find the cafeteria and his little group of friends all went without lunch or water.  The following day when I dropped him off, I told him, “I can’t believe that you and your friends, who are in the smartest classes, couldn’t figure out how lunch works.  Today, jokingly ask the teacher if Freshman are meant to starve and to be so weak by the last period that concentration is impossible from going without lunch. Be the hero for your friends and ask the teacher so that you all get fed.”  That was a good segue into new experiences causing high anxiety.  I shared with him, how every time I start a new class I always feel super nervous, but then after a few days it becomes the new norm and my nerves leave me.  Teachers are as nervous as the students I told him, so just keep that in mind that you are not alone in your uneasiness the first few days of school.  The second day report was a lot better they all ate and he was able to enjoy his classes.

Seeing my nephew so nervous as he started a completely new school – bigger- a whole new world, it comforted me because new experiences are tough!  And I think as we get older we can beat ourselves up for feeling anxious and so out of control with new things.  It’s like just because we aged we now have to be comfortable in all situations without nerves.  This week I started teaching a new class and I was so nervous because it was my first time teaching in a hybrid format.  Normally I have my virtual and in person kids at different appointments, but as our school works at getting all students back in person now direct instruction has to be hybrid with virtual and in person students together at the same time.  All week my anxiety was to through roof because I have to lead and in my mind I was thinking how much the kids would hate it because I hate teaching in this format.  Yet, my nephew taught me that even though I am the teacher I am allowed to make mistakes and be super nervous because I am human.  And it’s perfectly human to feel so utterly out-of-control-nervous when trying new things.

I think as I age, the anxiety will try to get the best of me.  It will try to get me to avoid new experiences, but if I push through those uncomfortable feelings I can grow and learn.  I might even discover new things I enjoy.