One more day…

In August of 2004, I walked into a stuffy classroom at Cornerstone University, hooked up my laptop, straightened my stack of speech syllabi, and flashed a nervous smile at a classroom of freshmen. I was pregnant with Madi, newly laid off from my job at Byron Bank, and entirely unsure if I was going to make it through the first class, let alone ever teach another semester.

I survived, and proceeded to teach for the next five years. But after giving my notice back in January, it was time to move on…time to focus more on the homefront…time to find different ways to spend my evenings than just grading research papers…

It is the right decision, one that I feel good about, but when it came down to my last day of classes, I didn’t feel so good. Somehow, I thought that I would feel joy and relief, like I was throwing my graduation cap up into the air, but all I felt was…loss…kind of like wanting to simultaneously bury my head under my pillow, scream into the wind, and puke into the nearest trash can.

I wasn’t prepared for it, and didn’t know how to handle it. Maybe I had been so focused on surviving the semester that I didn’t think about ending it…who knows…

So I floated through that last morning, going through the motions…putting Fiona down for a nap, helping in Madi’s class, making lunch, driving to class…distracted by what was to come and confused about the wave of emotions that threatened to drown me.

I sat in the parking lot, trying to figure out why this sense of loss was so strong, when it came to me. I felt like a part of me…the “me” that is a professor…that loves a challenge, loves seeing students grow, loves the rush from being in front of a crowd…was being hacked out with a dull blade…neatly boxed up…wrapped in brown paper…and put in a nondescript storage locker, next to “news anchor” and “corporate executive”.

Is it what I am supposed to do? Absolutely. Will I teach again someday? Maybe.

But that gaping hole…in my identity…is going to take a little time to heal. And I think…when September rolls around, and I don’t find myself in a stuffy classroom looking at another batch of eager freshmen, that loss is going to ache. Because as much as I complained about the workload and the low pay and the late night prep sessions…I absolutely loved my job.

I unstuck myself from the car seat, pulled my backpack from Fiona’s carseat, and trudged towards the building.

One more exam review…

One more day of speeches…

One more chance to make a difference…

One more day…

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad