I’ve been struggling with my emotions this week as I prepared to pack up my classroom. Since school closed there have been very few tear-free days. I think that’s true for many of us since our lives are upside down and normalcy is uncertain. Closing Gearhart, without getting to really revel in the last few months has been hard. As I started to pack on Saturday, I prepared myself for a few sob sessions. But once in my classroom, I realized I had trouble putting my finger on a tangible thing that I would miss from room 11.
I certainly will not miss the potato bug colony that moves in and out in waves, leaving crusty carcasses behind. I won’t miss the musty smell that comes from doors and windows that don’t shut all the way. I, for darn sure, won’t miss that bathroom, and the uncertainty that comes with flushing at high tide. I won’t miss the loud frog that competes with me in the rainy season. I won’t miss having to change into boots because the sidewalk has flooded. I won’t miss the yellow walls and the weird 1/2 wall paneling that can’t have possibly ever been white. I won’t miss how the fire alarm in the back room goes off when the temperature drops, or how the door between my classroom and Sarah’s won’t ever really close. I won’t miss snagging my sweaters on the giant columns that cut off part of the room. And the spiders. I won’t miss the spiders, who come stomping back, even after they’ve been “rehomed” in the field. But despite that list, there have been many tears.
In sorting through it, I realized that I won’t miss the physical room, or building, but I will miss what happened to me here.
Many of you may not know that when I came here, I didn’t get a new job and move, or decide to move, and look for a job. I plain and simple quit the job I had. I was over it. I had no intention of teaching again. The pressure from test scores was extreme. I felt like no matter what I did, no matter the improvements our school made, it would never be enough. I would always fail. There were politics at the district level that were exhausting, and a laundry list of things that took away the bulk of my time and energy. Hardly any of it had to do with what was happening inside my classroom. None of it had to do with kids.
And so I quit, and it was one of the bravest things I have ever done, and one of the most freeing. My unemployment did not last long though. 😉 A family friend that lived in Seaside kept telling me about this special school that had an opening. His parents were educators, and so it had some weight, and also the way he talked about it, not having gone there, or had kids there was intriguing. And I wanted to get him off my back about it, and so I applied. 😂 I did not know the job was for 5th grade until I had the interview questions in my hand. I hadn’t done the leg work on it because I was pretty cavalier about the whole thing. I was done, remember?
But then, as you know, when you’re offered a job, when someone says they want YOU, everything goes out the window. It happened so fast, that I wondered if I had even thought it through. I’d give it a year. I could always quit again. It’s not so scary once you’ve done it once. ☺️
And so I started at Gearhart. I spent the summer setting up this strange classroom that smelled weird, looked weird, and had technology from the Ice Age. I laughed out loud several times at the absurdity of it all.
And then the kids came. And guess, what? I got to teach. That’s all I did. I was new, I was out in the portable…people left me alone. I had a blissful two years or so of remembering what it’s like to teach without distraction. To have your whole energy be on the kids right in front of you. I’ve always felt like that was taken from me too early in my career by She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I remembered, in that pale yellow room, that I love teaching. That I’m good at it. That it IS what I’m called to do.
It doesn’t last forever, that being left alone thing, and thank goodness for that. I thrive on being involved, and love contributing to the school and district in ways that fit my talents. And so as I tearfully pack up this classroom, it’s not the room I’m wistful about. I’m already missing the glow of what happened to me here. I worry about not being able to find the sparkle outside of this room. I worry about finding my people, the people who helped me find my pixie dust, in our large new building. Yes, they will all (mostly) be there, and yes they will be interspersed with other awesome people that I already know and love. But change is hard. Goodbyes are harder. And so those are the tears. This was a life changing six years for me. This place, the building, the families, and the staff, pushed a magical new existence into my teaching career. I’m forever grateful, and will, plain and simple, miss the magic that is Gearhart. ❤️
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