#i’m ashamed of myself. of my life. I’m a fucking 35 year old loser and I know I let you down. talking to you just reminds me I’m a fuck up

[literaryfaeriecorner]

1/29/21: community, love, and... well, really nothing

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January 29th, 2021

today i was thinking about how even in the midst of really terrible shit, there's still some really amazing things that can and do happen.

i hate my job with a passion that literally no one around me can understand. back before the pandemic, teaching in the charter system that i work at gave me constant nightmares and panic attacks. i think i have mild PTSD, actually. seriously. after everything went remote, i found some degree of relief. my nightmares happen less frequently, i tend to have less panic attacks, working from home allows me more physical comfort (no one is forcing me to stand on my feet for 10 hours straight), and it's relatively easier to tweet on the job, lol. however, it's still a big point of misery for me. i feel disrespected by my superiors (i literally got cursed out the other week for a logistical mistake that wasn't even my own), my boss-boss hates me, someone leaked screenshots of an instagram post i made last summer about the state of the education system and the charter network i work for took it as some kind of personal attack and i had to answer for it (weird), and i am one of the most underpaid people in my teaching cohort. they explain this away by saying i don't "meet certain data points," and i dont do this and i neglect to do that but i do just as much work if not more than my coworkers... so. anyway, i just want to get out. i hate it. very badly. my job is one of the main causes of my depressive episodes. i'm only still there because i have rent to pay and i also don't want to leave my kids in the middle of the school year... i absolutely would if i got a new job but it would cause me a bit of agony...

anyway, even in the midst of all that negativity and depression and terribleness... i am strangely glad that i ended up there. today, after one of my most taxing classes (it's not exactly a difficult group of students to teach... i just teach them after two other back-to-back classes and by that point i'm drained and absolutely numb in the brain), two of my coworkers jumped on my zoom link to tell me about a mini scandal they happened upon yesterday.

one of my kids' parents is using her daughter's school-issued laptop to sext with some obviously-catfish internet guy behind her husband's back! they discovered this while using our school's device-monitoring program to make sure the kids weren't cheating during a practice exam. the story and screenshots and talk of next-steps were certainly all hilarious and fun and a nice reprieve from a long, tireless day of remote teaching/chasing after kids/grading terrible fucking papers/getting blamed for everything negative under the sun, but the thing i'm most grateful and feeling blessed for is... community. just sitting on a locked zoom call with two other young women talking trash, shooting the shit, gabbing, sharing scandalous information, dramatically reading corny sexts between two older people was absolutely rejuvenating. it felt like being in middle school or high school again. sitting at a table with your friends after a long morning of classes and just talking shit and hanging out and making sure that everyone was good and could make it through another afternoon of the same old tired, boring, draining, depressing shit. it felt good. and i felt grateful. i no doubt would've slipped into self-pity mode which includes scrolling twitter even though no one has anything good to say, snacking on an unholy amount of girlscout cookies, and napping for the last ten minutes of my break before going into another excruciatingly long period of teaching european history (yuck!).

the thing i hate most about the pandemic is that i am missing out on community. i miss going to bars and clubs and parties by myself and plunging into a room full of people who are also open to meeting someone new, getting into something exciting, running away from home. my favorite part of last school year was getting off of work and heading to dinner with a date, or a friend's house for drinks, or to a book signing or art and culture event. just running around nyc for as long as i could, having as much fun as i could, with as many people as i could before the clock struck 12 and i would have to get up in the morning and play the role of boring, underpaid single female middle school teacher again. now, it feels like i can never escape that role. it feels like my entire life is about being a teacher and being abused and underpaid and stupid and lame and underappreciated. i miss my communities and the identities i found within them.

that's why i was so grateful to my coworkers. for a period of 30 - 35 mins or so, i wasn't just a teacher. i was a friend, a gossip, an asshole, a bitch, a silly girl, a person. a whole person. and i hardly ever feel like a whole person anymore. the four walls of my room don't seem big enough to fit a whole person. just a teacher. just a student. just a failure. just a fuck-up.

i love love. i know they're just my coworkers but i'd be lying if i said i didn't love them. i was also thinking, today, about how people are only in our lives for seasons. and sometimes we know this. like, for example, i know that if i got a job at a new place right this moment (fingers crossed, from this blog to God's ears!!!) that i would leave and probably never hear or speak to any of my coworkers again. and i was thinking how i was ok with this. it wouldn't diminish my love for them in any way or make me feel like i need to find some way to keep them around forever... it just is what it is. i can love them and still know that we aren't meant to be together for too long. we got each other through this hellhole of a job without killing ourselves and that's enough for a lifetime, to be honest.

i was supposed to write all these thoughts way earlier but He messaged me on instagram. He replied to a post of mine talking about WandaVision and apologizing for not texting back last saturday... since this is my blog and im basically anonymous, i'm not ashamed to say that seeing his name pop up on my phone is enough to send me over the moon... especially when it's unexpected and unprompted... he's such a bozo though and i basically let him know... i am a big believer in honesty and eagerness but sometimes a little cool is needed. i brushed off his apology and let him know he was sorry as fuck all the time and then congratulated him on being the kind of person who gets to say "i was just overwhelmed because the judge fucked us over and now i'm working until midnight for the next week." that's probably weird but what can be better than having a job that you like, doing something that you love and that is DEFINITELY helping your career... that's more than what some people have... (i am some people, unfortunately, but i'm looking at getting out of being such a fucking loser)

umm.. it's 1AM now and i have another long, tireless day of being a fucking superhuman aka teacher tomorrow so i'm going to go to bed but i feel like i didn't blog right because i didn't have a clear beginning, middle, end and proper sign off and i know i'm being silly and blogs don't always have to be like that but that's how i feel... but i have to go so that's how it's gonna have to be. i just wanted to write my thoughts down and update my blog because i'm trying to keep my promises to myself in 2021. if i don't keep promises to myself... how will i get anything done?

also He just messaged me back again :) and i have to stare at the message for AT LEAST 30 mins before i can settle into sleep mode.

until next time.