Staring at the Foreground

I stare toward the horizon a lot lately. 

I just keep staring at it, expecting it to change. The road looks straight and clear in front of me, but I keep thinking that it’s going to turn, to drop off, to lead to somewhere different. 

Am I really going to keep traveling this same path? High school was four years. College was four years. I’ve taught four years. When is graduation? When does the path change again? 

I stare toward the horizon a lot lately. Well, actually, I stare at my computer screen a lot lately. 

I have a secret Pinterest board where I pin articles about teachers who’ve quit teaching and moved on to new careers. I have a folder of bookmarks on my web browser titled “Dream Jobs,” but I don’t think there’s a link to a single truly dream job on it. I’d have to know what my dream job is for that to be possible. 

I’m signed up for email alerts of teaching and tutoring jobs in my area. I signed up one day when I was fed up with teaching, yet even then I couldn’t think of any other categories of jobs to consider than those. I check them every day out of habit now, and I’ve almost sent in my resume for a few. 

I’ve considered getting my Master’s in library science. I always wanted to be a librarian. My elementary school librarian wore sequined tops and animal print and made them look awesome. She smelled of perfume and used her long manicured nails that I admired so much to turn the pages of children’s books that she read from the side, holding them turned for us to see the pictures. I could see myself in sequins and glasses, with my hair piled on top of my head like hers, cataloging and organizing and helping kids pick out books. I can almost smell the books… being a librarian would be amazing. 

I say I wish I could quit teaching. I threaten that I’m going to. Every year, I say it’s my last year, but I think of ideas for next year in the shower, continue to buy books for my classroom, and write notes to myself to remind me how I can teach what I’m currently teaching better next time. I wonder what I would do with all the canvases I’ve painted for my room if I quit, try to imagine not having school to think about all the time and can’t think of what would take its place.  

The truth is my dream job is teaching. I can’t think of anything else to add to my job alert profile because what am I made for but teaching? What else have I ever wanted to do?

I wanted to be a waitress.
I wanted to be a writer. 
I wanted to be a librarian.
I wanted to be a linguist.
I wanted to be a teacher.

That is the exhaustive list of every career aspiration I can remember having in my childhood and adolescence. 

I don’t know if I can add wanting to work at LOFT or Starbucks or being SuperNanny to that list or not. Do those whims I’ve had since adulthood count?

The thing is, I think I’m a teacher. 

I keep staring into the horizon, trying to find an alternate route, something that will fill my heart without the sacrifice, something that will make me feel constantly validated, something that would let me sit with my books and my papers and my journals all the time, something I could do in an 8-hour day without any night and weekend work and see lives change for the better every single day right before my eyes. 

I think I’ll be staring into the horizon for a long time if I’m looking for all that. 

Maybe it’s time to start looking around me instead of ahead of me:
     my scrapbook of notes from kiddos
     my bright-colored classroom, my oasis and theirs
     a girl wearing her glasses because if I can, she can too
     a stack of essays, far from perfect, but better than last year’s stack
     facebook messages from former students, asking for advice
     kids who come back to visit from high school
         and notice what I’ve changed, remember where they sat in the room,
         ask if we still read what we read together their year, 
          say they miss 7th grade the most
     the kid I don’t even have in class who hugs me in the hall
     the 8th grader who brought me a card the first weeks of school
“Thank you so much for everything you taught me last year. 
            We’re already using it this year.”
     the 8th grader who brought me candy for Christmas
 (I can’t believe she thought of me all this time later.)
      nervous pre-teens in prom dresses and ties at a formal dance
      pages of notebooks marked “Please read, Mrs. Coleman!” 
      and written as letters just to me "Mrs. Coleman, what do you think?"

I am a constant back and forth when it comes to this place in my life. I’ve felt good like this about teaching before, and it always seems to fade. Somehow, though, this time, I think I’m going to keep it. I’m going to get tired again, frustrated again, all those negative school feelings again, but I think this new current of gratitude for the amazing privilege of being a teacher, of assuredness that this is who I am, is going to stay, even when it’s beneath the surface, reminding me of who I am and how and why…

I think it’s going to last. At least until something new really does appear on the horizon, all on its own without trying to force it. 

I just have to get my eyes off the horizon, quit staring into the distance, and look around.