To everything there is a season

“I haven’t felt good in a long time.”

These are words a colleague said to me today at the end of a conversation. They are words I’m sure many teachers could agree with right now.

I’m tired. I’m tired of worrying about my health. I’m tired of worrying if I’m doing my job well enough.

Last week was a bad week, for a variety of reasons. After getting through it, on Saturday I started feeling sick. Naturally, I anxiously assumed the worst. But after talking it out, and actually getting a decent amount of sleep, I felt better.

It wasn’t COVID. It wasn’t a cold or a flu. It was stress. I was so stressed, so tired, so anxious that I had started to make myself sick.

It’s hard to feel anything anymore. I’ve been so frustrated and angry for so long, that I just don’t have any energy left to think about how I feel or to muster the words to express it.

If you’re an educator (or an educator’s amazing significant other), maybe you understand what I’m feeling. If you don’t get it...well, alright then. I’m too exhausted to try to explain it any better.

I love being a teacher. It’s just really, really hard right now.