"Sometimes there are no words for the sadness that lives within you and so silence is what you give to the world." r. h. Sin
I came across this quote a few days ago, and it was perfect, exactly the words I was looking for, exactly the description for everything I haven't said over the last two months. Two months...that's how long it has been since I last blogged..at least on a public blog...I've written a thousand blogs in my head. But I wasn't ready to let the words out, to share them with the world, or to open up the wounds.
I had to make a very difficult decision. I will be taking a medical leave of absence from my job as a 6th grade language arts teacher for the 2022-2023 school year. This is a decision that is absolutely breaking my heart, feels like I am losing part of my identity, but I know I am not physically or cognitively capable of providing my students with what they deserve. I also recognize that my health cannot withstand another year of repeating the patterns from last year because I will never make any progress if I continue that way.
I have had so many people tell me, reassure me, that the summer off would be the cure-all, the remedy to all of my ailments, the antidote, the magical solution to everything I've dealt with over the past 10 months. But, unfortunately, they were wrong. I have felt my body fail me, have felt the increasing pain in my limbs, felt my mind slip further into darkness at times, felt the panic, the scariness, that "fight or flight" feeling growing more and more intense. I have realized I have very little memory of most of the past school year, have a great deal of difficulty recalling names of students, of details, of conversations. The time after Covid, from October 10, 2021, through the end of the school year looks very, very different in my mind than the two months prior, before I had Covid. Everything after my Covid infection is blurry, foggy, fuzzy...I know I was there, that things occurred, but the details are cloudy. That's a very, very scary thing to realize looking back. It's especially scary because, in the moment, I had no idea. I really, truly thought I was doing OK...
My daughter turns 21 on Sunday. Monday, August 8th is her "new year, new you" so I told her this year I am joining her. If this were a "normal" year, I would be starting back to school for teacher work days August 8th. This year I will be beginning my "new year, new me" for the 2022-2023 year on August 8th. It will look different than years past. But different doesn't have to mean bad. Different can mean growth and healing and restoration too.
