Sink or swim...returning to work.

As I travelled that familiar route on the first day of the new term, I found myself filled with elation.  Positive thoughts emanated from me; ideas for new lessons fought for space in my mind. 

I truly believed returning would be easier, less traumatic.  I'd spent a year preparing to start where I had left off .  Instead I found myself cringing from the sheer noise of it all.  Not just the physical slamming of doors and shouting of boys but the mental noise; that inner voice reeling off to-do lists, responsibilities, demands and urgencies.

And it seemed everything was urgent.  My ability to prioitise was flabby, under-worked for months.  For a year my biggest chore had been supermarket shopping.  Now it was to fill out current grades; target grades; plan lessons; attend meetings and somewhere in that overgrown space, teach.  I had to desperately weed out the creeping ivy of unnecessary tasks that from day one, began to choke me.  I had to fight to clear a gap for each real focus.  I began to flail in panic, drowning.

My place of work hasn't exactly made it easy for me.  If anything, their endless demands have escalated the trauma of my return.  I've almost buckled under their 'innovative' yet crippling plan to complete a GCSE in a month.  I've been counting down the days until the exam (tomorrow!) Thick black crosses cover the calendar, marking my path to freedom. 

I've been hunted down for current grades for children I've known for a mere two hours; children whose names alone escape me.  11 hour days have eaten my soul and left me asleep on top of the sheets, fully clothed.  My first observation in two years took hours to prepare and hovered over me like a black cloud.  I didn't even have time to celebrate the 'good-with-outstanding-features' result before I was catapulted back into the heaving tide of purposeless administration, pupil admonishment, barely-there progress and under-achievement.

I've shocked even myself at the slow loss of my can-do attitude, my sudden slide into nervousness. I've become one of the self-loathing whingers I despise.  The days have swirled past in a furious tsnaumi of panic, the occasional tear and the constant shedding of confidence.

It's been devastating. 

Teaching has been my greatest love.  The moment I stepped in a class-room during my GTP in 2009 I knew it was meant to be.  An innate ability to teach resided within me, needing to be nurtured into a full skillset.  I was thrilled and relieved to find my calling.  I lived and breathed teaching.  I planned activities as I washed my hair, I visualised lessons behind closed eyes on the train, I pondered ways to engage my pupils and created new interventions to implement.

This has been ripped from me, torn away like a conjoined twin.  I feel like less of a person without that necessity to teach.  A passion shaped hole weeps inside me.  Instead of a positive rebounding spirit, I shudder at the thought of being too challenged.  I fear failure. 

My confidence lays shattered.

The silhouette of my body outlined on the pine-needled floor of the courtyard haunts me, whispers ugly memories.  It has faded for everyone else but it taps me on the shoulder at every turn, beckons a blistered finger towards the window, forcing me to look across that landscape of horror.  Not only has this school taken a year from me, they have twisted teaching into something that is no longer enjoyable.

I am trying to recall the joy of this job.  Accepting that life will not remain untainted by this episode does help.  I comfort myself that the problem isn't me.  I am still a teacher, it is the school that changes everything.  Already I am seeing fleeting glimpses of before.  That dawning light in a pupil's eye as 'metaphor' sinks in...those fragments of progress...it's all a step closer to where I was before my career was rudely interrupted.

Yet already the mornings are punctuated less with panic, more with the pleasant acceptance of the day's events unfolding.  Each morning, as the alarm chirps into the breaking darkness, the sense of disaster becomes fainter.  The doom-and-gloom teeters on a precipice instead of always pushing me over the edge. 

It's not my duty to continously remind people what has happened.  It's only been 7 weeks since I returned to my job and the site of my burns.  I am feeling my way fearfully, desperate to reach the day when I wake up with my pre-accident sunny disposition and look forward to my working day. 

I know that in years to come I will stand in a classroom and feel that sense of self-worth and satisfaction blossom again.

Photo 'drowning woman' http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/underwater-room    http://briannapancakes.tumblr.com/