Wow! I felt terrible for three weeks. I’ve had covid twice (not twice in the past three weeks)! My daughter continues to share food. No matter how many conversations we have. She shared food with others outside of our home when I’m not present. It’s tough trying to live a balanced life and maintaining balance on everything. I get it’s important to build up immune systems and not be a complete germs phobic! At the same time I don’t want my little people getting others ill and my little one keeps getting me sick. I bust my butt to try and stay healthy, yet as an asthmatic I seem to catch her germs all the time instantaneously! She gets sick for maybe 24-48 hours with the germs and I’m down for three weeks. When I say down, I mean hacking up my lungs while still running my entire household on pure exhaustion!!l Today I feel almost 100% better minus the exhaustion!!
I have been toying the idea of writing a book! I have an idea in mind. I’m letting my fear of failure get in the way of actual even trying. I have always been self critical and it holds me back!
I’ve finally had an epiphany on my own life. Well a huge milestone epiphany! I get so caught up in what I THINK I should do based on society’s stereotypes. Last year I took a leave of absence and was feeling embarrassed about leaving my career temporarily because “a winner never quits!” Well, a winner never settles and CAN make changes! To be honest I avoided invitations to gatherings with former colleagues because I was embarrassed to explain myself. I’m also struggling with the balance of knowing I don’t owe anyone an explanation and providing reasons to my kids on why I do the things I do. Kids need to know WHY. They have a better chance to understand if they know the why. The whole because I said so I feel is super outdated and shows the adult has superior issues. On the other hand I feel I need to get better with not giving explanations to defend my No. I need to get better with boundaries and if something isn’t working for me, I also need to stop letting that shit go. I decide my self worth. Society is changing. There’s a difference between respecting elders and keeping quiet to just keep the peace. We can do both. I’m not sure if my message right there is clear. Help me. Read that again. There is a difference between respecting our elders and keeping quiet to just keep the peace. If we are not at peace at something our elders are doing it’s not worth staying quiet. I’m not saying yell at them and be like Danny Divito in Matilda “I’m right and your wrong…” No. No. No. The whole ‘Oh they are set in their ways…” let’s just fix our own mindsets and take action to change the world!!
Even to this day, I’m told to just be like Elsa and let that shit go. Life is too short. No. If we all don’t feel peace, we can’t let it go!! Unless someone like you cares a whole lot it won’t get better!! ⬅️ I butchered that Dr Seuss quote.
What you are doing is enough!! I wish I had that in my mind when I was teaching!! I constantly felt I never was doing enough because any person knows we should never settle for believing we know it all since we are constantly evolving to grow!! Part of my educator burn out was constantly feeling guilty! If I didn’t give my all, I felt I was failing my students. Then if I did that, I was failing my family! How do you say no and not feel guilt going into a career where 99% of educators have hearts of gold and GIVE GIVE GIVE! I felt my leaders were out to “get me.” I felt guilty taking days off to go see a doctor. Hell, couldn’t even call a doctor because doctor offices have lunch breaks the same time and you can’t/shouldn’t be taking care of personal matters during class time. So I guarantee so many teachers did and are doing the same!! Imagine trying to do in vitro and practically forced to inform everybody from your boss, to your team, because you don’t want to be judged as a careless flake being late to work every day. It’s easy to say stop caring what others think of you. This thought process of caring what others think actually got me so sick that I had a mental health breakdown. I’m now in a place that realizes not everyone was out to get me!! But that’s how I felt because I cared too much about everyone and everything and striving to be my best. I can finally say with confidence I needed to leave that career because it wasn’t healthy for me and impacted my family.
I was ashamed to say I’m a stay at home mom. When all I wanted for over a decade and being childless was to be a mom!
I still struggle because I feel like people think I believe I’m better than them for being able to step away from my toxic workplace feelings and now working on making myself better for my family!
