Fresh Start.

Almost everyone has heard the quote, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”

Towards the semester break last school year I really began to question if I was meant to be a teacher, if I had wasted four years on a degree that I wasn’t compatible with. I wasn’t happy. I was more stressed than I had ever been. I strained relationships because of it. I wasn’t an enjoyable person to be around, I will be the first to admit that. It was so hard to find the positive in things when I felt all I did was eat, breathe and live a job that I hated. I was in a toxic work environment and I mistook that as what teaching really was. Teaching just wasn’t a glorious job right? Things must have just been sugarcoated for me before. Wrong.

As a first year teacher, I was already burning out. I felt overworked, underappreciated and nothing I did was enough or made my job enjoyable. This is not to say that there weren’t good days, but no good day, regardless of how good it was, could cover up the main issue. This wasn’t to say I didn’t love my students either, they will always have a special place in my heart and I think of them frequently. Those kids changed my lives forever, but they were overshadowed by the bigger picture and issue.

Fast-forward to now, a new school year and a new school. After a full week under my belt of year two, I can say I do not have a new “job”. I have a new home. I don’t go to “work” every day because I love every minute of it. It’s not that pulling teeth feeling of I HAVE to go to “work”. Instead, it’s the great feeling of “let’s head to school and see my wonderful students today”, “let’s go change the world” and “my job matters”. I am reminded why I went into teaching, why I love teaching.

Last year I frequently contemplated taking a “personal health day”, and admittedly did, just because I was so unhappy and so burnt out that I couldn’t emotionally face my students and deal with everything thrown my way in a given day.This year, already, I know that will not happen. I don’t want to miss a day with my students. I want to be there.

Multiple times a day I am reminded of how blessed I am for this fresh start.

I know God put me where he did last year to show me that (1) He will protect me, (2) I am stronger than I thought and can do more than I thought, and (3) I can change the lives of students that I thought I was not able to reach.

To those who were with me along the way. Those who surrounded me and dealt with me last year. Thank you. I cannot thank you for supporting me and inspiring me to be the best I could be.

I cannot wait to see what God will show me this year and the years to come.

Cheers to year two!

itallstacksup

Dream Big and Make it Happen.