A hard summer

(This is a repeat post from Here/There)

It's been a hard summer.

At the end of the school year, I knew that I was mentally tense. My mother was visiting, which inevitably added stress, but it was a much looked forward to visit. Things at home were doing fine, my husband the same wonderful as always. Health was great. Money fine. Socially, everything was the same. My problem was at work.

Almost since starting work at this particular place, in September of 2007, I had experienced different levels of frustration. In many senses it was a great place to work: almost zero supervision, good hours, and seemingly laid back and friendly boss and coworkers. I soon discovered, however, that even though the boss didn't tell me what to do or when to do it, he certainly had an idea of what should be done and when. My frustration went from confusion to outright distress over the two years I was there, ultimately culminating in being told that my contract would not be renewed this fall.

Technically, I had not been fired. But I felt ashamed registering my name in the unemployment office. I was very unhappy in that job and often thought about leaving it. Yet, the decision had not been mine, and what's more, it came out of the blue! I felt completely out of control of my life. I didn't get along with my boss, felt that he expected outrageous things from me and rejected any type of communication. And then HE fired me, when obviously he was in the wrong! All the reasons he gave me for the firing were technically true (and none of them were about my work in the classroom as a teacher, in fact he gave me an excellent reference in my new job), but even though I recognized they were true, they were so absurd that I still can't believe I was fired for things so stupid.

Two weeks after the incident I found another job, to start in September. In fact, I turned in my CV on a Thursday and by Friday at noon I was offered the job. I knew that I had a strong CV and I know that I'm a good teacher. But I felt defeated. My husband and I talked about the financial repercussions of me not working during the summer and they were minimal. Our finances are great. But I felt like a useless member of the team. I was extremely depressed. My husband was wondering what in the world was going on.

It's hard in Toledo, where I still don't know many people. And without work, it's hard to keep moving forward, more than anything, emotionally. It kept me stuck for just about all of July. My great husband took me to France for holidays and we've just returned. August isn't very busy, but I'm going to try to move forward in lots of different ways so that emotionally I move forward too. So, I'll be back blogging also. September has lots of great changes that I can't wait to share.