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This is part 2 of my story of entering and then leaving the classroom. You can read Part 1 here. In this post, I talk about what it was like to be a teaching and working mom and some of the struggles I faced, externally and internally.
By the end of that COVID year, the masks were in the trash, the desk shields had been turned into ornaments, and the hand sanitizer… well, we are still using that. I taught Summer School that year, which was the best schedule with Fridays off. Then, I returned that August full-time. My son was a 1 year and a half by that point and starting to run around. As any working mom can attest to, when you are out of the home so much something has to give. I think of my life broken into different areas: work, home, church, family, fun/hobbies, and big projects. You can think of them like balls you are juggling in the air. I’ve found that, out of these areas, I really only have time for about three of these. When I’m home for the summer, I generally make the house, church, and family the focus of my attention. The dishes get washed, floors mopped, windows cleaned, and meals planned and cooked. I’m able to teach my bible study and have time for date nights and family days. But, when school starts back up, all the routines I put in place are thrown out the window. It’s easy to turn to fast food, especially because that means that I have a few more minutes of quiet to listen to my podcast in the car while I pick it up. The dishes and laundry start to get piled up in the dreaded stacks that get so overwhelming they just stay there. And who cares if there are little handprints on windows, right? When my son was a year old, we were in a different house. It had been under construction as we were renovating it. It was easy to let things slide because I had literal holes in my walls. Who cares if there is some dirt on the floor? It’s probably just sawdust anyway.
We were able to move into a finished house while my husband finished renovating the other house. And with it came the peace that happens when you have a place you can actually start turning into a home – you can actually hang up pictures and organize your furniture and have dishes that you can wash in an actual sink as opposed to a utility sink hooked up in your downstairs bathroom. But, with the finished house came the responsibility that I actually needed to clean this house. There were no more excuses. The craziness of September passed by and things got a little piled up. And, then in November, I found out I was pregnant, with all the tiredness and nausea that it brings. I was down for the count. I didn’t throw up as much as I did with my son, but I did gag every single stinking time I opened the refrigerator. Pregnancy is another one of those areas of life, another of the balls that you have to juggle you can’t drop. And if you are pregnant and working, that’s about the only thing that you can get done.
Again, I juggled it all, including the added pressure from the admin to bring up our test scores. Things definitely fell by the wayside, with dishes piled across our counters and a month’s worth of laundry that needed to be folded (but hey, at least it was washed). And again, I prayed and prayed. I wouldn’t say that this past year was a ‘hum year.’ I had great kids, but I wasn’t necessarily enjoying every day. It was just a job – not a struggle, not a joy – just a job. With a toddler and another on the way, I came back to that question: Should I stay or should I go? I prayed for a sign, and honestly, I think I just wanted permission, and validation from God that it was okay to quit my job.
I’ve been raised by people who rightly know the importance of work. That work is a gift and something that you should do with excellence. I read Roaring Lambs when I was in high school, and I recognized that through your work you can do great ministry. And teaching? What better platform than your job to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Especially when you work with a population that truly does have great needs. It’s hard for me to understand. Isn’t this the perfect spot to do ministry? Teaching is such a difficult job emotionally. It isn’t something you can walk in and out of lightly. I’ve had the feeling several times that I am ‘suiting up’ when I walk in the door in the morning. You have to put aside any personal problems, put on a confident smile, and get ready to be on all day. It requires a certain amount of momentum to keep showing up every day. Once I walk out that door, I don’t want to come back. It’s like swimming in a cool river on a summer’s day. When you first ease in, it can be so chilly that you cry out and want to rush back to shore. If you swim for a while, you start to warm up to the water and after a while, it can actually be enjoyable. But, it’s easy to get tired (and there can be snakes). Once you make it back to shore and warm up, you don’t always want to go through the process of getting back in.
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My maternity leave has been a moment of sitting out on the shore in the sun. It’s such a sweet time that has warmed up my soul. How could I jump back into those treacherous cold waters? Why would I want to?
Could my ministry be staying at home? Could it expand beyond the classroom into a place where I can feel free and still feel useful and fulfilled?
I’ll finish up my story in the next post and explain a little about my future plans.
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