Maslow before Bloom

One  of my favorite things to say when I'm teaching is "You have to do the Maslow stuff before you do the Bloom's stuff."

In case you didn't study psychology or ed psych, Maslow was a researcher who created a pyramid called the hierarchy of needs. Essentially, you have to meet your needs for survival, safety, and belonging before you can meet your needs for growth and self actualization. 

Bloom was an educational theorist, who developed a taxonomy of educational objectives. Knowledge came before understanding  came before synthesis and evaluation.

So when I say you have to do the Maslow stuff before you do the Bloom's stuff, I'm saying that you have to make sure kids' basic needs - physical, emotional, and psychological - are being met before you  can expect them to meet higher order learning objectives. 

I kind of forgot that the same thing applies to me. 

I have been trying to figure out what to do with my life. I have been DESPAIRING of the fact that I can't find higher meaning and purpose in my life. And every day I've been writing the worst crap in the world in my journal about how I feel afraid and angry and alone, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I'm never going to reach self actualization without dealing with that stuff first

I don't know what that means yet, but I know that keeping it in mind and allowing and accepting it is the only place to begin.

I have to meet my Maslow needs first. And that's okay.

Despair

 Last week, I was sitting in the teacher's lounge at a middle school where I was substituting. The teachers sitting around me started talking about how the teachers at the high school were going to turn over in the next one to three years because so many teachers were going to retire. My ears perked up because I am still hoping to get a teaching job. Then I started to realize that the people they were talking about were all only about five years older than I am. 

I wonder if it's time to give up. 

I am 44 years old. I'm to old to start over. I am too old to try to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. 

Do I regret the years I spent as a full time mom? ... Nooo? I mean, I don't think so. 

Do I resent the fact that spending those years with my kids somehow took me off the track to ever do anything else with my life ever again? Yeeeees. 

How many times when my kids were little did I tell myself that I couldn't do everything at the same time but life is long? How many times did I convince myself that it was all going to be okay, that I was going to have time to find myself again, that when my kids weren't little anymore there would be plenty of time to do all the other things I wanted to do again? 

And now I'm 44 and it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like there's any time left to do things. I know there's a lot of life left, but it really doesn't feel like life thinks there's enough of me left. 

There's no happy ending today. There's no moral. There's no twist. Today there's just despair. 

Resilience

 When I was in my 20s, I used to say that I was very lucky. I was very lucky that every time I had really needed a job, one had appeared. 

I moved to Indiana after my first full year of professional teaching, and I signed up to sub in 3 different districts. By October, after subbing a few times at the city schools and exactly one time at the county high school, I was offered a long term sub job by the county that I hadn't even applied for. When it ended, I went back to subbing. Again, I subbed a few times at the city schools and exactly one time at the county middle school, and I got a call that very afternoon asking me if I would take another long term job. That job turned into a second job that took me through the end of the year. 

The next year, we moved to Texas, with very little warning. I sent letters to all the public and private schools in town and before the summer had ended or I had even set foot in the state of Texas, the Catholic school principal called me and said I was just what he needed. I worked there for three years. 

When my husband graduated and we moved to Pennsylvania, I worked as an SAT teacher and master tutor, teaching several classes a week, while I waited for my PA certification to go through. As soon as it did, I signed up to sub in several districts. Before I had even subbed a day, I got called for a long term job that lasted through the end of the year. 

This summer I had three interviews. One in my home district, where I have subbed for 6 years. One for the middle school in the district where I have long term subbed at the high school for the last two years. And one at an underprivileged school that struggles to keep certified teachers. No one hired me. 

I feel broken. I know I need to bounce, to keep applying, to take the rejection with a grain of salt. But in the back of my head, in the bottom of my soul I just keep asking, why does no one want me anymore?

The last job I interviewed for, the one which on the surface seemed like the least strong match, was the one that probably stung the most. When I saw the job posted a week before school started, when I got the invitation to interview, I thought, this is it. This is the job that's going to come through, that's going to change my life, that's going to be there right when I need it like all those other jobs have been. I told people about it. I almost bought books for the classroom library before even going to the interview.

When they picked another candidate, I was disappointed. Really though, I was deeply, deeply ashamed. Ashamed for thinking that I could get it. Ashamed for telling people about the interview and then having to tell them I didn't get it. Ashamed for believing that anyone would want me. 

The very first teaching job I ever applied for, the one that I don't talk about, was at the school where I student taught, subbing for my cooperating teacher. It seemed like a sure thing. I would be teaching content I knew to kids I knew and loved. But they gave it to someone else. The superintendent had promised the next job to someone and besides, he said. I looked sloppy. My clothes were wrinkled. My hair was messy. 

I went home and cried.

That winter break, before returning to my last semester of grad school, I sat on my parents' couch and read Writing Down the Bones cover to cover. I wrote for hours. In the evenings I went to the townie bar with friends, one of whom is now my husband, and shared pitchers of beer. I started to feel like a person again. I remembered who I was. 

And at the end of that break, the same school called me for a different long term sub job, which went to the end of the year and which turned into my first full time contract job the next year. 

I checked out Writing Down the Bones from the library a few weeks ago. My notebook is open. I'm afraid of the vulnerability to hope that something will come up , that something will change, but I'm beginning from the only place I know. Hopefully I'll find myself there again. 

Drowning

 I am sitting in a classroom with one student who is quietly working on her AP French work. This isn't my classroom, isn't my student, isn't my chair. I am substituting again, after two years of working long term and teaching again. I am alone with my thoughts because there is really nothing for me to do. 

And I'm drowning.

I have had a chest cold for about a week and I'm not sure at what point I need to go to the doctor, but I took my littlest twice for the same thing last month and they didn't do anything either time, so I'm hesitant. When I take a deep breath in, it catches in my throat for a second. When I exhale hard, it quickly becomes a juicy cough, which at least feels a little bit satisfying. 

Both my kids are in therapy now, one of them with two different therapists, and we go to family therapy every twoish weeks. Both kids are in a play that rehearses every night for the next two weeks, and the little one also just got into another play and the big one is auditioning for one today. Big sister is also in marching band, so I'm ferrying to those practices and going to football games every Friday.

My income as a substitute teacher is half what it was last year on a temporary contract. 

I am drowning.

I applied for at least 10 jobs this summer. I interviewed for three of them. I didn't get any of them. 

There's a second student now, which is nice for the first one at least. And here comes a good cough. There's a squeak at the end of that inhale now. 

Breathing is important, I tell myself. And I've been looking for some breathing room. Some time to read, to write, to think. 

So why am I drowning?

Writing

 I am sitting in a public library 40 minutes from my house while my oldest daughter runs a Dungeons and Dragons for beginners program downstairs. She is really quite amazing at this and runs it at two different libraries now. I'm proud of her. I'm happy for her.

And I'm sitting here for 3 hours waiting for her.

Before I left my house this morning, I packed a bag with my laptop and charger, my journal, a book I was in the middle of. Then I left that bag sitting on my living room floor.

I was going to go for a walk and listen to my audiobook but I lost my earbuds a week ago.

I'm a mess.

So, I logged on to one of the public computers and signed in to this here old blog, and I'm writing. I'm writing. I know how to do this. I remember. 

There's something about writing that brings me back to myself, if only for just a few minutes. 

I still don't have a job for next year. I still haven't figured out how to make my teachers pay teachers store into a real business that replaces even some of my income. I still haven't read the 36 books I was trying to read for summer reading this summer. I still haven't become a steady working freelance writer, had an article published in any famous magazines, been randomly offered a book deal by a benevolent stranger who stumbled upon my blog.

I still don't know what I'm even looking for. 

But always, every time, it starts with this. It starts with writing. It starts with being raw and real and genuine and just putting all the words on the page and trusting that somehow, somewhere, I will find my way home. 

Hello world. Hello words. I'm here. For a few minutes, I'm home. 

Failure

This morning I got the official email from a school district saying "thanks for applying but we've decided to move forward with another candidate." Yesterday I realized that the backup "safety" job I'd applied for, a long term sub position with a district I've worked with for the past two years, had been posted for over a month and I hadnt even gotten an interview.

Last week, one of my Facebook friends had a post about the Atlantic responding to a pitch she'd sent them and another post about having two more articles boosted on the Medium. She joked about her husband telling her "people are supposed to struggle." 

I'm happy for her. I am. ... I am? 

I am. But.

Right now I feel like a big old failure. 

I feel like no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work, I'm not getting anywhere. 

And also I know that I'm not trying as hard as I could be because deep down inside I still believe that trying and wanting is shameful. 

Deep down inside I'm still the gifted seventeen year old straight A student who sat down on the curb and cried the day she got three thin envelopes in the mail. 

Deep down inside, I just want to feel validated and wanted and loved. Deep down inside, I'm tired of being nobody, I'm tired of not existing and having anything that's mine, that makes me me. Deep down inside I always assumed that after staying home and raising kids for ten years, I could jump right back into being me, right back into things being easy and not having to try too hard.

Deep down inside, I have been ignoring for a long time all the things that I just never did because I was afraid they would be hard.

I don't wanna put myself out there. I don't wanna be vulnerable. I don't wanna get rejected. I don't wanna fail.

But I don't wanna be invisible forever either.

The work

 

“Should I stab my own eye out with a knitting needle instead of writing?” says the 14 year old sitting so close to me on the couch, I am reminded of the time when she lived inside my uterus.

I mean, I understand the question.

She reads this over my shoulder as I type it and murmurs. “Mmm hmm. There’s two. Now we can share” as she hands me my own knitting needle.

She’s writing a novel. She’s 2% into it and so far the characters have laughed 18 times and haven’t made it past breakfast. It’s the end of the world.

As she decides that maybe - MAYBE - someone will come to the door before they even have a chance to START eating breakfast and she’s back off and running, I stare at the google doc on my screen and think about how I too would like to write a novel. Or a memoir. Or a single blog post really. But it’s hard and it’s scary, and the knitting needle is looking surprisingly tempting right now.




All day I’ve felt on edge, tired and wired, certain that I want to be doing SOMETHING but that I have no idea what that is, that I am somehow falling behind, that I will never accomplish anything in my life. And the more I think about that, the more I freeze, the more I sink, the less motivated I feel to even do a single thing.

I want to write a book. I want to write articles and get them published somewhere. I want to find my voice again. I want to create things that people find meaningful. I created this human who has informed me that there’s no doorbell because OBVIOUSLY these are medieval teenage friends having breakfast together, so clearly I can create ANYTHING.

I just have to put the knitting needle down and get back to work.

Well, hello Summer. Hello self - what? Yes, there's yogurt in the fridge. Yes it's. Oh never mind I'll be right there.

 My summer vacation (and the end of my temporary teaching job) started on Friday. Today is Tuesday. 

I laid out a plan for myself in my notebook yesterday. 

1. Start the day writing.

2. End the day reading.

3. Clean something every day.

4. Make something every day.

5. Do something you've been avoiding every day. 

6. Do something fun every day. 

This is the summer that I'm going to find myself, find my voice again, figure out my life purpose, recover from burnout, get enough rest, heal some of my autoimmune diseases, improve my mental health, and remember how to have fun.

In the past two days I've gone to 3 therapy appointments total for my two kids, visited two different public libraries, driven at least one kid to theater rehearsal every day and both to piano lessons once, folded four baskets of laundry, and run the dishwasher at least 527 times. 

I feel like something is going to have to give. I don't want it to be me this time. 

Starting over. Again.

 Today is my first day of summer vacation. Yesterday was my last day of school in a permanent sub position, at a school I've been at for two years that will not have a position available for me next year. Yesterday was also big girl's last day of middle school. Yesterday I got confirmation that I did not get a full time contract teaching job I was hoping to get.

I have a lot of feelings.

I left school yesterday shortly after the kids left. I had comp time to use up and I was finished with my grades and my (her) classroom. I tried to duck out without seeing anyone, but I didn't quite succeed so i got a few hugs and teared up a little. There were a lot of people I didn't see though. People who have kindly accepted me as part of their community, treated me like a real member of their department, made me feel like I really belonged there.

I guess I never really did belong there though. I was always just filling someone else's place.

There's a long term middle school job available in the same district next year, and the department chair is making phone calls for me. There are people hoping for me to get it. But really I have no idea if I'll get it because for the first time in my life, at 44, I'm getting rejected a lot.

And I hope I get it because it's a good district, because it's a job, but also I'm dreading getting it. I'm dreading going into a new building with people I don't know, with kids I don't know, with a curriculum I don't know, and starting over. It sucks. I'm much too old to still be doing this every year. I'm too old to keep starting over.

I thought when I stayed home with my babies that teaching was  a thing I could always just walk back into when they were old enough. I thought I would still be able to do it, still be able to get hired and be treasured. I'm not.

It's my first day of summer and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry for at least two weeks. But I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and get ready to start over. Again.

My place

I am 44 years old. My baby girl is 14, and her 8th grade recognition ceremony is in an hour. Little sister is 12. It's been a long road. 

When I had babies, I opened a blogpost and started writing because I just didn't know what else to do. I poured out my soul onto the screen. I reached out into the world and the world reached back and for that I will always be grateful.

And then one day I stopped. Blogging wasn't a thing anymore, there wasn't a community, and I didn't think I had anything left to say. Except I did. Of course I knew I did. I just didn't want to say it. 

Almost two years ago, I saw a long term substitute teaching job posted at a place where I worked 14 years ago and almost on a whim I applied. And I got it. And the past two years I've spent in a classroom again with 15 year olds who aren't mine. And it felt like coming home.

But here I am now, finishing another long term sub job, applying to more jobs, and I don't know where I belong. No one wants to hire me for a permanent job. I'm never going to find anything. Why would anyone want to hire a 44 year old mom with a 14 year resume gap? There are 30 year olds with more years of classroom experience than I have. It's frustrating. It's lonely. It's exhausting. I'm tired of getting rejected. I'm tired of trying.

But I keep looking, keep going out there because some day I'm going to find my place.