Daily rambles about quilting, gardening, reading, cooking and just plain old being.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Hell Week at Work

This has been Hell-week. I took to calling my students (10th grade English in a public school) The Dementors ala' Harry Potter months ago. The Demenotors really ramped it up this week....sucking all the joy from the space, sucking all the life from me, sucking it all away, until there was NOTHING left.

PMS+ The Dementors = one ugly scene, and this week was nothing but UGLY.

I already have issues with depression. The blueness creeps in frequently enough without any extra stressors, but this (school) year has been nothing but stress. When we started back in August I tried the "mind over matter" game. I tried to convince myself I was refreshed and renewed, but I knew before the first student crossed the threshold that I was done, so done.

I struggled through six weeks or so, crying almost every day, threatened to quit at Christmas, waffled back and forth (driving my husband crazy), agonized daily, and finally decided to finish the year. Finishing the year makes the most financial sense for us. Finishing the year is the right thing to do for my co-workers. Finishing the year is the right thing to do for the few decent humans who sit in my classroom each day. BUT finishing the year is really not the right thing for me.

Finishing the year means five more months of misery, of weeks like this week. I didn't even go to work on Monday, so it was only four days, but it felt like eight. I wore yoga clothes one day and the same pair of jeans the other three. One day my hair looked like it had been styled by Black and Decker, a combo leaf blower/vacuum maybe? When I caught sight of myself in the mirror that day all I thought was "Oh well, nothing I can do about it now." Resigned to looking like crap, I really didn't care. I'm only about one step away from wearing my pajamas to work. We will see how long it takes for that to happen.

I don't care about anything, not how late I am, not my clothes, not my hair, not the quality of the work I'm doing--I really just want to sleep which is the one thing that is evading me. Lying awake gives me plenty of time to agonize over the shit-job I'm doing and worry over what I'm going to do when I quit. I never wanted to be a person who was only going through the motions for the paycheck, but that is what I'm doing and sadly, I'm barely doing that.

I gave up on The Dementors months ago and since deeming them irredeemable I've let them run me over...I just don't have the energy to fight them. Again, not the person I want to be, but my heart is broken. Never have I been treated with such disrespect. Actually you can't really call it disrespect, I simply do not exist, I am less than human, I matter not.

I've promised myself that when the new semester begins on Tuesday I will turn over a new leaf and I hope I can do it...I'm not sure I can take 88 more days of the Blues.

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