Over the course of the past, well two years really, my job situation has been in a bit of a flux. I walked away from teaching in June '10 because I thought it just wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was stressed out, burnt out, and just ready to throw in the towel. Well a few months went by, and I realized that I had made a mistake. I'm human after all, but when my friends all went back to their classrooms, I found I missed it. It took some time before I was finally able to be back in a classroom again, and once I was, I was not placed there permanantly. All this issues from leaving the old job were biting me on the butt. Lesson learned. It took until almost July '11 to reestablish myself in terms of my work history and get back on a contract. It was hard. But it was a life lesson learned, and a very valuable one at that.
Making the choice to stay at the school where I had done my temporary teaching made sense. I knew the building, I knew some of the staff, and I knew where I needed to go, or so I thought. The students that I took on this year presented to us a 66% pass rate on their reading SOL. (That's not a huge secret, it's on the VDOE website, so please don't think I'm sharing some sort of classified information.) This presented great challenges to me as a teacher, not only because I was placed in a new grade level and was learning myself, but also because it meant that since they had issues reading, it would affect them anytime I asked them to read and comprehend in a content area. It was truly a struggle this year. It kept me from Crossfitting the way I wanted to, and it added a LARGE amount of stress to my life. I just couldn't get to the blog.
But, here's the good news. The good news is, that I'm coming out the other side. The other good news is that now, I have a year of the 4th grade curriculum behind me, which means next year I can focus more on reaching ALL learners and not just focus on making sure I'm teaching the right stuff. Believe me when I say, it's harder than you think. But as things wind down, I can now focus more on getting back to CrossFitting and more on getting back to ME.
Throughout this journey with this blog and CrossFit, I have learned a few things about myself. I am in fact a workaholic, and I am in fact, a perfectionist. And as I get older, it's becoming more and more evident, and I'm now learning I'm really going to have to TRY to create a balance in my life. For me, it will NOT naturally happen. I've let my job run my life, and I've let it take me away from things I truly enjoy. I've also let my job completely derail my diet. I know that I should be eating Paleo, but God, when it feels like your job is sucking the ever living life out of you, it's really hard to come home then and focus on eating all the RIGHT things.
If you stuggle with that, believe me when I say, I get you. I get the need for Starbucks in the morning, and I get the need for the snack drawer at work. It's something that has plagued me in the past, and a habit I thought I broke, but... not so I guess. I feel terrible that I have caved and that old habits have snuck back in. I do feel sort of like a failure for that.... but I've also realized that I'm human, and that we all have setbacks. The only thing that will make me a "failure" is if I continue to do it, and don't do anything to fix it. These past few months have been a setback, but that doesn't mean I can't do something about it.
If you are like me, and often feel like you are yo-yoing, believe me, someone out there gets it. I do. I feel the success and failure crash with you 100%. But, get back on the horse. I'm setting small goals for myself, starting tomorrow, and I intend to get moving back in the right direction. Perhaps it's also partially because I am now 30 (hooray for birthdays!) and now feel the need to push myself in the right directions for a lot of things. But, I also know that I have a competition coming up in August, and I don't want to be the weak link on our team, since it is a partner competition. I don't want to struggle and know in my head that I could have done more. It's a small thing, it's a small step, but it's a step. I know I need to eat right and push myself in the box so that I can feel like an equal. If you're not a competition person, don't sweat it. Set a small goal for you for a different reason. Set a different goal. I just know that for me, I NEED something to push me, and the competition is a good push. If you're someone who has not been derailed by life and you've been maintaining your goals, AWESOME and good for you! Celebrate that and keep going. I wish I could be right there with you, but I can't. My time is now. It is my time to get back to doing the right things, and get back to being a good athlete, a good friend, and a healthy individual. 30 is the new 20 and I want to rock it in style.... :) But if I want to do that, it's time to get back to it....
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