Today I feel the need to begin with a disclaimer. I write because it's cathartic. It's how I process things. It's how I attempt to come to peace with them. And I write online in hopes that someone might read it and understand - or even relate. (I used to pick trusted people to write "letters to never be sent," but sometimes it's nice to get a response, even if it's seeing that one person at least viewed what I had to say). And I write to express what I can't always manage to say to anyone out loud. When I write, I'm honest. And the honest truth is that I'm not often a super positive and uplifting person, at least not in recent years. It's been a long time since I've managed to be happy more than a day or two at a time. And I can only manage a relaxed, neutral contentment for extended periods of time when I spend days straight binge-watching TV shows on Netflix completely ignoring the existence of the outside world. There was a time in recent months when it felt like I had forgotten how to be happy for more than moments at a time, when the best I remembered feeling for months on end was mild discontentment. My life doesn't feel like a particularly positive experience lately. So if you're looking for something that's positive and uplifting, you're not going to find it here. At least not today. So get out now before I rain any further on your parade. You have been warned.
My life this year seems a sea of opposing emotions - all of which lead nowhere good. And when these are the only thoughts and emotions running through my head, I feel constantly trapped in nearly all aspects of my life.
It probably starts with my job. I miss my old school, but I no longer trust them enough to consider even applying if a position were to open up again. So I took a job at my current school despite a serious feeling of uncertainty regarding it being a good fit because it's a district that most teachers would love to be in and, let's face it, with less than one month of summer left I needed to find a job before the school year started. And it seems that my gut instinct may have been right, but it doesn't leave me with good options now. The idea of looking for a different job is in and of itself is a daunting task, probably because of the less-than-pleasant job-hunting experience I had last summer. And I don't know that switching schools every year until I find the right one will get me anywhere in life either. It's not an ideal option to stay but it's also not an ideal option to leave. So I'm trapped.
I don't know that I'm in the right career path. As much as I love teaching, the only way it's helped my mental health is by providing the benefits and income I need to see a counselor. Most of the time it only makes my anxiety and depression worse. And my anxiety and depression make it increasingly difficult for me to be the kind of teacher I'm supposed to be. And while the improvement of my mental health is a work in progress that has slowly but surely been improving, it's not improving as quickly as it needs to for me to do all aspects of my job, and as long as kids' futures are on the line, my mental health doesn't really mean anything to anyone but me. So maybe I shouldn't be a teacher right now. But that's letting the anxiety win, which I'm told is a bad thing. I've thought about other careers - photography, writing, film music analysis, and mental health awareness advocate are all hobbies that I'm greatly interested in, but none of them bring a stable job with reasonably comfortable income and benefits, likely bringing me greater stress in the long run. No good way to stay. No good way to leave. And while my eventual goal is to be a stay-at-home mom, that option is still years away seeing as I'm not even dating anyone right now... So I'm trapped.
I've about had it with teaching math. It's exacting and cold and feels meaningless most days. I know it's useful, and I spout of the reasons why to my students every time they ask. But it feels meaningless. And with the emphasis on math these days, there's way too much pressure. I miss the arts. I miss including heart and soul and the human experience in everything I teach. I'd much rather talk about symbolism in poetry, the effectiveness of music in film, the framing within a photograph, the realism of a work of literature. I want to share with them the human experience, to talk about experiencing different walks of life through art in any form. To give them a place to express their true emotions and identity without fear. I want to sing patriotic songs with them to honor American soldiers past and present on Veteran's day. I want them to express their thrill to see me after a performance and then ask me if their intense scene made me cry. I miss the moments. I've nearly lost the desire to instill my students with hard, cold facts but instead long to shape them as human beings who appreciate the subjective expressions of other human beings. I miss the arts. But I can't really afford to go back to school to teach literature or photography or film. And finding a full-time music teaching job is difficult most anywhere but especially in the limited region where I want to stay in an attempt to keep the small support system I have. And, having never really fit in with the music crowd, I don't know that I can even get a foot in the door for an interview. As much as I deeply want to teach music, my gut tells me that I probably never will. I don't know how to continue to be passionate with my current subject, but I don't know how to realistically get a position teaching in the arts. So I'm trapped.
And my job isn't the only place I'm feeling conflicted, though it certainly tends to consume my life. I miss my faith being the most important part of my life. I miss when my faith gave me hope, when I found comfort in God. And I miss the extended families that I found in my faith communities. But more often than not, my faith brings me more pain than hope. I look for God's comfort and can't find it (and don't tell me that he's still there because right now it means nothing to me if I can't feel it). And I've lost all trust in faith communities as a whole. The faith community I grew up with, whom I considered my extended family, has pretty well dissipated (at least partially under stress of and in frustration with church politics). And I've felt betrayed by nearly all faith communities I've been a part of since that time. While there are still many Christ-people in my life whom I love and who always support me, I feel no desire to find a church home. Too many politics, too many betrayals. I've built up enough trust issues in recent years of my life, and too many of them have started with church people. I long to attend worship but fear being noticed as a newcomer (which, let's be serious, tends to happen at basically any Minnesotan church, even the big ones - thank you, Minnesota nice...) So I don't show up at all. I never pictured myself as one of the many young adults who have left the church but still feel a connection to God, and I don't identify with all of the reasons that many reasons that people of my generation are leaving the church, but I somehow find myself among them and somehow getting it. I know that Christians are just as human as anyone else, but somehow the bad experiences I've had with Christian communities have left some of the deepest scars - perhaps because I had trusted them more deeply to begin with. And I know that some quality faith communities still exist - I have a great one to return to every time I head back north, but with where I am right now, I don't think I can handle risking trying a new place and learning that it's not one of the good ones. I feel guilty for non-attendance on top of feeling guilty because I'm completely rejecting the idea of being an active part of a church community at this point in my life on top of feeling guilty for having a problem with the imperfections of other Christians. I want my faith to mean what it once did, to bring to my life what it once did, but I don't know how to find my way back - or maybe it just hurts too much to get there. So I feel trapped.
And feeling trapped makes me feel hopeless. Most people say that either high school or college were the best years of their lives. But my first two years of high school pretty much sucked and despite how much better my senior year was, it was rather stressful and sleep-deprived. And outside of fantastic classes my junior year and a truly phenomenal music student teaching experience, college was one of the most emotionally and socially painful experiences of my life. So I feel like I missed out on something. And everyone tells me that being an adult doesn't really get any better. So then I feel even more trapped. And I can't find a way out.
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