Moving On

October has been a difficult month for me this year, and it’s not even over yet (though nearly).  But I sincerely hope the hardest things I will encounter this month are now behind me. 

October began with some rockiness in my personal life.  Now, three weeks later, I can look back with clarity and see that what happened was for the best.  But at the time—well, I was a mess for a little bit there.

And then, one week after my personal life had been turned upside down, the school called the foreign hire teachers into a meeting and informed us that they wanted our decisions about whether we wanted to renew our contracts at the end of this year or not soon.  Like within the next week, soon.

Last Christmas, I had decided this would be my third and final year living in Guatemala.  I felt the time was right and I would be ready to return to Wisconsin after this school year. 

But then eight months later, I came back here after summer vacation, and I was reminded about everything that I love about my life here.  I am happy in almost every single aspect of my life.  So I began to question my decision.  Maybe a fourth year in Guatemala wouldn’t be such a poor decision, after all.

My gut kept pulling me home, though.  I had thought I had another month to decide for sure, to make sure of my feelings, and to let my school know my plans for the following year.  When they asked us to inform them by October 21st, I suddenly felt less sure than ever before.  (My indecision also may have been influenced by my mostly-stable-but-recently-damaged mental state at the time of the meeting).    

I spent the next five days agonizing over my decision.  Crying.  Trying to reason with myself.  The thing was, something inside me told me moving home was the right thing to do.  But when my friends here asked me why I would leave, I didn’t have a good answer.  I love everything about my life here, and there are many things about moving back to Wisconsin that scare me, that I worry about, that I fear will make me less happy than I am here. 

But by Day 6, when I imagined how it would feel to tell my principal I was staying, it felt…wrong.  So, I told him I wouldn’t be returning.

I really think it was the right decision, though I still can’t define, exactly, my reasons why.  They have something to do with my future goals and where I want to end up years from now, however.  I feel it was the right move.  So now, the decision is off my shoulders, and I have the next seven months to enjoy my life—every single minute of it—and also mentally prepare myself to return to Wisconsin winters and public school teaching (but also to family, fall, the Mississippi, and safety on the streets).     


I lead a lovely life.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cambodia: Reflections and Highlights

Image
I was really excited to visit Cambodia for a few days and hit up Angkor Wat and the other temples in the area.  Cambodia felt like my kind of adventure--and I can’t even really say why.  But I was excited.  I was excited for our hotel there--a full-out boutique hotel (not a hostel), with AC, a swimming pool, breakfast included, and airport pick-up for free--which cost us a scant $20 per night.  And we’d read about a lot of great tours we could take with local guides.  Flying in and flying out, this leg of the trip would be a breeze, and hopefully everything would be as cheap as the hotel.   The Mango Rain Boutique Hotel Our flight to Cambodia was unlike any other I’ve ever been on.  There were only about 20 of us on the flight--which would not have been strange, except it was, because we were on a full-size plane that could have seated 200.  The 20 of us were mostly grouped together towards the back of the plane.  Second impressive t...
Read more

DI Globals 2016: A Tale of Two Teams

Image
For the past 3 years, I have acted as a team manager for Destination Imagination at my school in Guatemala, and each year, my team has earned a trip to Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee.  This school year, I was blessed to manage the exact same team I had last year—the Aguaguates, the most wonderful group of kids any DI team manager could wish for.  This group, all 7 th graders this year, has everything needed to not only excel at DI, but also make a team manager’s job almost unnecessary.  They have amazing team chemistry, and they understand the importance of teamwork.  They’re crazy creative and hilarious and amazing actors when they get on stage.  They push themselves to improve their performances.  They know what they need to get done for DI, and they create their own practice schedules.  In short, they are a DI dream team, not to mention really, really great people .  This year though, I took one look at the school calendar and deci...
Read more

Yearly Update: The Journey to 30

Image
Over a year has passed since my last “update.”  And the year I was 29, despite the fact that I lived close to home rather than abroad, was anything but boring, so there’s no real reason for the lack of blog posts.   The year I was 29, I survived what may have been my most difficult year of teaching yet.  Many overseas teachers say, “Teaching in the States is so much different than teaching abroad.  You’ll see.  That’s why I went overseas; I’d never go back to teaching in the States.  It’s just...too much.”  Well, they’re not wrong.  I admit, I thought that with five years teaching experience under my belt, my first year in the US, my first year at the high school level, would go rather smoothly.  While in a sense it did (no concerns about the quality of my work from administration or complaints from parents), it was mentally and emotionally very taxing.  Even this year, my 2nd back in the States, I’m still adjusting to and coming t...
Read more