Some might call it a midlife crisis, but I'm not in crisis. In fact, I'm the opposite of being in crisis. For the past seven years or so, I've been struggling at work. Really struggling. My immediate family would say that I'd been abused, though I think the phrase moral injury is more appropriate.
I used to love my job. I felt like I was really making a difference and turning out excellent students who were taking great care of their patients, with all of the skill and knowledge necessary to excel in their careers. I took great pride in my grads and their successes. But things started changing in the background, from the administrative side. At first, I chalked it up to being more involved in administration - that the metrics and pressure from on high were things I ignored when I was "just" an instructor and associate dean.
Over the past seven years, I began to lose sight of why I loved my job. Each day felt like I was selling a little bit of my soul to the devil. While I'm not a K-12 public educator, I can empathize with their disillusionment of the profession. Once the focus moves from teaching students to the best of our ability to meeting metrics, the magic begins to bleed away. For all those years, my students saved me. Every time I got frustrated and felt like I couldn't do it one second more, I'd step into the classroom and the energy from the students saved me.
When I found myself at the point when the students could no longer save me, I knew it was time to leave. I'd been seriously considering leaving for the last two years, but there's that whole "devil you know" thing. Though I knew I needed to make a change, it was easier to go with the flow. Then my migraines got worse, became more frequent. One every couple of weeks, when I'd been essentially migraine-free for years. Oh, I had my monthly three-day hormone-based migraines, but I can work through those - I've dealt with those for a decade - so I don't really consider them. But any migraine outside of those was rare, and only occurred when I was stressed.
Even with the increase in migraines, I was still gonna stick with the devil I knew. The little voice in my head was telling me it was time, but there was one pivotal moment - the straw the broke the camel's back, so to speak - that drove me to action. I took the weekend to think about it. Despite everything, the decision to leave was hard. My work wives, the women who kept me going day after day, were going to be stuck there. I can't express how much I love those ladies and how they kept me sane.
I also took time to think about my students. They had been my saviors and we were pretty close, not in a creepy, unprofessional way, but in a future co-worker way. I often referred to my students as "my kids", and often felt like their parent. Only, my job was to turn scared students, who often didn't have anyone in their corner, into professionals. My reputation on campus was not one of a "friend", but of the task master. More than one student told me that they left my class after the first day in tears, because they realized they wouldn't be able to fake it and that they wouldn't be able to get away with shenanigans.
Frankly, being the only instructor on campus known as the task master also took its toll. It wouldn't have been nearly as hard on the students to come into my classes if the standards had been the same across the board. I wasn't mean, or hateful, but I also didn't accept excuses. I laid out the class rules and expected the students to abide by them, but the "kinder, gentler" style of classroom management became a burr under my saddle. If our job was to train professionals, then we needed to treat the students as professionals, with professional standards: be on time, do your work, accept responsibility, do not make excuses.
The students who were most terrified to stay in my classes often showed the most growth and we became close. I knew that leaving would be hard on all of us. In fact, one of my hardest cases accused me of abandoning her.
Once my decision to leave was made, I gave a lot of notice - twelve weeks - so that the dean would have time to hire a new instructor and associate dean. It also gave the students time to adjust, which I hoped would ease their feeling of abandonment.
The craziest thing happened when I turned in my notice: my migraines disappeared. I went from having a couple a month (outside of the hormonal ones), to just one in twelve weeks. The last migraine I had came toward then end of my tenure at the school, and I know it's because I was (and am) worried about what was going to happen to my department and my students. Not only did my migraines disappear, but I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I felt ... free, and light. A few days after I turned in my notice, I realized that I no longer required 9-10 hours of sleep a night. I had way more energy, slept only about 5 hours a night and woke up refreshed. I felt like a whole new person. I couldn't stop smiling.
I didn't know what I was going to do - I have always worked multiple jobs, but I've never given up my primary job - but even that wasn't enough to dampen my happiness. Things at work that normally would have set me off became minor annoyances (it's amazing what a IDGAF attitude will do for a person).
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| Maybe the best going away gift ever. |
I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up, and I'm still looking for a job that will be a good fit. I'm a loyal employee, and learn things quickly, so I'd love to find a company that I could give twenty years to. I had a 30+ year career in medicine (in one form or another, including fifteen years teaching); I've got another 20 easy. I do know that I want to move away from medicine, as it has evolved in a way I don't like, but I also know that it's a good fall back plan in case I can't find anything else.
This is totally a "chick flick" thing to say, but I do truly feel like I'm starting a whole new life.
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