I forgot to mention that on the first day of October half term, I had a stark realisation. I had lived in my house for about two weeks and had spent so little time in it that I'd never seen it in daylight, save on the weekends. I decided I couldn't live this way. I was commuting to a school near Brighton, waking at 5 every morning (which is fine, really), getting to the train station by 5:30, and just barely making it in before 8:30 (school started at 8:45). I was exhausted, my complexion was sallow, and there was no incentive for me anymore. My job (Head of the Maths Department) is in demand and I was working with kids who made me cry most days (could this have been the lack of a life added to the commute? Or was it just the children? Who knew. What I did know was that I could not change the world at this school and did not have the energy to keep trying). I wrote this on that day and dared not mention it was my JOB (I can say it now) that was killing me...
I'm watching Oprah on MasterClass right now and I'm struck with a profound realisation: I need to do something that helps me feel THIS positive all the time. I fear that there is an aspect of my life (I daren't say what it is, for fear that it will be taken out of context and I'll be in trouble, sigh) that makes me so entirely negative that I forget how I feel RIGHT NOW.
I got up today at a reasonable hour (not 5 am). I've had some coffee and watched the sun come up between two buildings. I feel relaxed, like someone who has been on vacation for the last four and a half weeks. The difficulty came when I started to think about how positive I have been feeling lately: I am seeing the sunny side of life; I'm not surrounded by negative people and surroundings; I had a sunny beachy holiday and that has restored my mental state.
God, I needed a permanent positive mental state.
I searched online for a new job and the only head of maths job in the country was three miles from my house. I'd be crazy not to apply. So I did. And though the deadline had passed, somehow my application was accepted and I was interviewed. I had to teach a class and have a gruelling interview, but it was so much more civilised than other whole-day-job-interviews in the past (my worst one was 8 hours long, culminating in a one-hour intensive interview. No one should have to endure that). The whole place was civilised. In fact, when I was leaving and walking to the train station, a boy "dropped" a plastic bottle on the ground. I said, "You best be picking that up", to which he bashfully replied, "Yes, Miss" and did just that. I'd landed in Eden. I am never leaving.
School is two train stops from my house (at a third of the cost of my last monthly train pass): I walk ten minutes to our train station; commute 10 minutes on the train; then walk five minutes to school. It's amazing.
Now after great results this year and hopes for the kids I was hired to boost up, I'm ready to go back after a long, restful summer. I feel so, so lucky. I feel so, so happy.
Who knew work could be so rewarding?
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