I can't believe half term is nearly approaching and I have completed it at home. I still feel in the school mindset and still feel really governed by time/days/weeks and wondering when the next holiday is. Including the summer holidays, I have not stepped inside my classroom for 12 weeks and that makes me feel so many different emotions. I'm surprised at how sad I can still feel and often do feel when I think about certain parts of school, but I guess when you are mourning something or someone, you tend to remember only the positives.
My work bestie did Open Evening a couple of weeks ago at school... that was our thing that we did together. A 12-14 hour work day, fuelled solely by delirium. We used to draw a big tree trunk and get our classes to cut leaves out for the whole week prior to the night, and year 6 students would come in and write autumnal poetry on the leaves. We would make a ginormous poe-tree and play autumn jazz on the classroom speakers and hope and pray that the current trainee teachers would then make our night easier by talking to the students so we could just not talk for a few minutes! Anyway, she did Open Evening without me and it took place in my old classroom, and when she sent me a video of my room all ready, my heart just sank and it honestly felt like when you see a picture of a loved one who has passed away- I felt a real sadness and sense of loss. My mum lives near my old school (I purposely lived a million miles away so that I could walk around my village without hearing HIIII MISS) and I was leaving her house the other day and I saw two students from a year 10 class that I simply adored. I had taught them since they started in y7 and begged to teach them each year as I just loved teaching them. Saying goodbye to them prematurely before they left y11 was a very difficult thing to do and when I saw them my heart just burst with happiness. They were leaving school much later and all I could think was... guys... please just be leaving a revision session and not a DT! I feel very lucky to have had brilliant relationships with my classes and that will always stay with me.
I can miss my routine very much. Even though I did struggle with the complete lack of flexibility that teaching brings, I knew what I was doing for every minute of every day and I have struggled to find a new routine and it is something I am still working on. I realise more and more each day that I probably don't need a strict routine- it's just something I'm super used to but need to remind myself it is what I had to escape from for my own mental wellbeing. When I quit teaching, I imagined I would have certain days that I would do things on. Like, I'd clean and do laundry on a Monday, do the food shop Tuesday, make wax melts Wednesday etc and this just hasn't happened and I used to beat myself up about this but when I stop and think, I tell myself this is brilliant! I have come to learn that I don't need this big official cleaning day because I am at home every day and can chip away at it and keep on top of it easier. I do laundry when I can be bothered... and do smaller loads more often now instead of the dreaded mountain, and I do the food shop online and get it delivered because £1 Sainsbury slots are just obscenely good (and I can't get distracted with autumn PJ's and homeware)
When I reflect on routine, I smile with memories of dragging myself out of bed at 6am to get to school. What if I had stayed up too late reading or watching a good show? I still had to get up at the crack of dawn, have the one coffee of the day as I never had time for another at school, and simply wait for adrenaline to kick in to fuel my day. When I stay up late now, albeit I stay up late now working, I don't have to get up at 6. If I stay up later, I can wake up later. And this is it. This is what I craved for so long- the flexibility to look after myself and stop running myself into the ground day after day after day in a job that, let's face it, has become harder and harder over the years.
I have always liked being at home. I enjoy making my home cosy and comforting, but for the last 10 years, I feel like I haven't really been in it. Now when I wake up, I can sip my coffee slowly, cuddle the fur babies and plan my day. I can slow down. Now, there is nothing about starting your own business that involves slowing down. Life is rather crazy and hectic at the minute but it is a different sort of busy and it drives you forward and excites you, but what I can do is just take that time each morning to properly enjoy a coffee, have a hot shower, and not rush around making a packed lunch and sorting things out for school. I don't wake up with crippling anxiety anymore, but if I do, I can look after myself. I can go for a walk, or step away from it all. I couldn't exactly step out of the classroom to cry (although I'm pretty sure I did once or twice!) I am slowly starting to learn what the simple pleasures are that I enjoy. A new mug, leaving my hair to dry naturally, morning walks, coffee shops, talking to wonderful people on IG, afternoon reading, working in the office next to my boyfriend, having a Sausage Dog on my lap as I write this blog post, having a clean kitchen with a wax melt burning that I made. This all makes me smile and I practise gratitude every day as I know how lucky I am that I get to do this.
I made the right decision to leave teaching. I enjoy my part time tutoring very much as I do still need to teach. It's definitely who I am and I just love English Language and Literature. I loved teaching, but cheesy as it is, I had to start loving myself more. Six weeks in and I am feeling more and more like myself and me and my work bestie talk allll the time and meet up and I am so thankful to have met her. Work friends really are everything aren't they- especially the ones that become friends full stop.
Lottie x