A Day to Make You Think

It had been a day.  You know the kind: Where you want to run screaming from the building, jump in your car, and roar out of the parking lot while ripping the rear view mirror off and blasting "Take This Job and Shove It"? Well, maybe you don't, but I certainly am well-acquainted with those kinds of days. And today was definitely one of them.

So, I was actually kind of happy to find myself sitting in the radiology waiting room right after school. A little breast torture didn't seem all that bad compared to what I had been through. My plan was to sit, breathe, and write while I waited patiently for the assistant to pop out from the door across from me and call my name. That was the plan. Unfortunately, in my frenzied state I had left my notebook behind on my desk at work. Not wanting to waste these precious moments, I opened up the note app on my i-Phone and tried to write with my thumbs. Not an easy task. It didn't end up mattering that I was being hampered in my efforts to write because my name was called much sooner than expected.

I was led cheerfully down a hallway, shown a dressing room, and instructed on how to put on the gown. After trading my black bra and green sweater for a hospital-blue gown with three arm holes, I sat again to wait my turn. I didn't think I'd be nervous. I hadn't been nervous for the three weeks I had waited for this appointment, but as I sat there I began to feel the first stirrings of anxiety. What if they found something? What if there were decisions to be made and treatments to be had in my immediate future?

Which brought me back to thinking about my day. And all the similar days before. The ones that found me crying at my desk and muttering to myself, "I can't do this anymore." Was this how I wanted to spend the rest of my life?

I thought the answer was no. I'm sure it is no. Only, I'm not sure. Because after my appointment, after hearing that nothing suspicious had been found and I walked out into the cold, brilliant blue-skied day, I realized that I wasn't as sure as I thought I was, not as sure as I wanted to be. I'd miss it. Not the frustrating parts, and there are plenty of those. Not the stress and the worry and the exhaustion. The actual teaching, though? That I would miss.

I am 55. I began teaching when I was 27, which means I have been a teacher for more than half my life. I loved being a teacher. And there are moments I still do. But they are only moments, outweighed mightily by feelings that this is no longer what I want to do. Man, that was a hard sentence to type! Even though I have thought it a million times, saying it out loud (or, typing it quietly, as the case may be) feels blasphemous somehow. The thing about being 55, though, is you begin to realize that most of your lifetime has already passed, making the days ahead all the more precious. The way I felt today and numerous days before is not how I want to feel. This isn't who I am or want to be. It would be lovely if I could just change the way I feel, find some glorious coping mechanism that didn't come in a wine glass, but that isn't going to happen.

The truth is, it's not that I can't do this anymore; I simply don't want to. This is one of my truths that I have been avoiding, trying to shove back into the dark where it can be ignored, forgotten. 

It is a truth that I didn't want, yet there it is.