One Night Ends to Start Another Day.

One Night Ends to Start Another Day

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France

Due to the current economic situation (mine and the nation’s), I have had to reevaluate the current direction of my life.  It seems that the education field does not seem to be a viable career path until some time in the next five years when the “baby boomers”  all retire.   Note that this has not been a thorough and bold faced lie for almost a decade.  Somewhere, someone has spread the idea that teaching equals longevity and career security. How many times have you heard someone say “Well, don’t they always need teachers?”   That question is sheer propaganda in such that if there is a so-called “need” for teachers, the fiscal amount budgeted and even granted to school systems has not matched said “need.”  Imagine a car dealer who needs the current model of a vehicle, needs a more employees to work his lot, mind you, not just employees, but knowledgable ones who can sell and keep with the times and all the new innovations.  Meanwhile he’s also facing vacancies in his lot from both used and new cars; the older models,  refuse to sale and often appear antiquated despite whatever improvements to the body that is made, while some of the new cars haven’t been driven extensively yet, and thus may not be completely functional in different environments.  Finally,  completing his incomplete inventory are tried and true automobiles that are seemingly dragged down by his inability to build a front business office that has a valued name, yet is willing to take risks for the mutual betterment of the company and its consumers.  So…what does the dealer do?  Does he go out and buy the new model because eventually the older ones are going to seem outdated.  Does he ignore the fact that he doesn’t have the money on hand for any of his needed expenditures. Or does he just buy whatever automobile he can for the  empty slots, in hopes that it doesn’t look like he has a business that is going under and salvage his reputation.  The current field of Education Administrators (and our Politicians) have made it hard to fill our lots with the teacher’s that are going to take you there on a purposeful ride.  It doesn’t matter what model automobile being driven, as long as there are regular tune ups/maintenance and that you aren’t just being taken for a spin.

Thus I declare  October 27th, 2009 is the day when I officially lift my head  up, and say that I am not going to continue living life as a placeholder, or to extend the above metaphor – a rental car.   The twists, curves and windy roads I’ve driven to attain a place for myself in this journey towards this career  have undoubtedly made me into a stronger educator, enriched my character and has allowed me to touch other’s lives in ways that I can probably never know. Yet, at this point where I am not firmly entrenched in the field, I’ve had to make a personal decision in regards to well…….how am I going to eat.  Is it going to be .20 cent wings that I budgeted in, Chipotale on pay day, or a meal a high class restaurant.  I’ve looked at so many of my friends and colleagues (not particularly those who are just in the Education field) living not necessarily meaningful lives, or the ideal life they want, but they are doing something.  They aren’t sitting at home by the phone at 6 am hoping to possibly work today.  They can knowingly count on a pay cycle that isn’t a month behind, and they in many ways know what kind of arena they are stepping into.  I could read off a litany of different  comparisons as to how much more, for lack of a better word, complete.  I need some stability and routine in my life.  I need to start working on a postive (bank account) balance, and not feeling envious of others vacation plans or snazzy new gizmos. I’ve reached the point of the journey whereupon I do not feel proud of myself, nor am I willing to continue down this road with hopes that eventually there will come a break.

Today, I declare that I will not allow myself contentment because I got called upon because someone else was not there.  Even most temporary jobs have got to be much better than being classified “Per Diem” but not actually working every day.  In life so many things are constantly shifting,  yet still they start to add up but it feels like I am eschewing my involvement in acceptance of that fact.  Defiantly, I told myself I was built for an even more arduous journey, when in actuality I haven’t even started to transverse into that terrain.  I had been hoping to weather the storm and counted on my ability to rebuild damaged communities, and enlighten dark corners by my shining example of perseverance and morality.  However, what if these cataclysmic changes to the environment isn’t just localized to this area?  What if it is the end of the world as I know it?  Perhaps, one dream’s supernova can be seen light-years away by a person who I have not even had the consciousness to dream of, because my dreams had been occupied by memory.

It’s time to move on or break away from what I had thought the mapquest of my life had said. It’s not necesarily that I am finished necessarily with Education as a career, I’ll still answer  Substitute teaching calls until I have full-time employment.  However, I can either going ahead and hope I don’t run out of gas, or I can turn back to where I last saw a safe place to begin my journey again.

[Chester Kent]