Burning It Down

I'm burnt out.  I don’t know if it’s life or that time in my career (if I can really call it that), but I’m having a hard time really seeing the point.  I feel like I’m in a hamster wheel.  I’m waiting for retirement because that's when my life can actually begin.  I don’t know how I got here is a thought I so often have.  I'm in education, if you don't already know, and it's a career that I never loved and that never really loved me back.  I watch as others are excited about things that don’t elicit much reaction from me and instead I’m stuck wondering if something is in fact wrong or maybe I’m in some kind of simulated limbo and if I can only find the key I will be released and can actually live again.

The weekends save me.  They are packed full of adventures and I feel like I can finally breath into life.  Writing has been a witness to this as well although there are times I don’t really see a point in doing that as well.

I remember once sitting around with a group of people I didn’t know all that well and they were talking about perspective careers. I was listening like I mostly do, not wanting to add or take away from the conversation that was being had until I found myself muttering that I regretted my chosen career path, probably my biggest regret actually.

“Don’t ever say that.” 

I looked up to the face of the person sitting across from me who had obviously heard what I had said because his gaze was fixed on my face and he had such a look of derision plastered upon his features that I almost thought he couldn’t possibly be talking to me, but he was.  I began to nod like he was of course right in his assumption of my stumbled upoin words.  And he was right in a way I suppose. He was the type of person that thinks highly of the person they are. He was attractive I suppose in that dark haired, right out of college so I know more than you, kind of way. Maybe that's what gave him the confidence.

Afterwards when I was processing the conversation I found myself getting angry and then even angrier at his pretention.  How dare this man judge me?  How dare he tell me how to feel?  He doesn’t know the person who I am or have been.  I should have stuck up for myself; put him in a place between belitterment and cynicism.

Because he was wrong and it’s okay if I want to wallow in my regret.  I’m not passionate about educatng today's youth; probably because I really don’t see the point of much of it, especially when parents have ceased to parent, the government is overgoverning, and all it ever makes me want to do is disappear into a book, a pencil, maybe some paper, and a beach in the background.  I don’t want to be part of such a fraudulent system, but now I feel like it’s entirely too late.

My coworker runs around putting up bulletin boards, planning crafts, talking with students and teachers and I just sit.  I hate crafts and most of the time I hate people so how did I fall into such a vocation?  I like to read; I like to research; but nowadays education is not about that at all.  I feel like I should have gone to clowning school instead of any real college because everything these days has to look bright and shiny.  We can’t just tell kids about an amazing book, we have to dress it up, juggle it around in a locked box or a computer app for anyone to give a shit.  When did it all get to be so backwards?

I have an inkling of course.  The new age of media has made everyone’s attention span the width of a gnat.  Entertainment is synonymous with education for if a student is not entertained they aren’t engaged and if they aren’t engaged they refuse to learn so please by all means be entertaining.

I have four years left, after this one, and some days, some weeks, some months I don’t think I can do it for that much longer.  Can I quietly bide my time for those years and just hope that I remain healthy enough so that I can actually start living when I don’t have to report to a place day in day out, hour in hour out, minute in minute out. 

So, I will continue to sit I suppose and wait.  I will continue to get up, workout, shower, get ready, drive, and fake smile my way to the finish line and hope that the end will be the actual beginning of something.