All's well that ends well

 "You can do anything, but not everything" 

'Burnouts aren't real' is what a colleague told me yesterday during out team dinner to celebrate the start of springbreak. As you might imagine I, as someone only just recovering from a burnout, took offense and while I didn't engage in further conversation (since I was quite tempted to bash his face in with my empty pasta bowl) his words and scoff lingered in my mind. 

I think the worst part is that only two years ago I would have thought (though definitely not said aloud) the same. Not because I doubted the existence of burnouts but because for a very long time I truly believed it would never happen to me. But then it did. And it sucked. A lot. 

When I just started working in education at the ripe age of 23, I internally sighed and scoffed at older teachers who deemed every little thing to be too much.Teachers that wouldn't go on schooltrips because they wouldn't get compensated for all the hours, teachers that would leave school after their last lesson, teachers who would complain endlessly whenever they had to take one extra step. To me these colleagues seemed bitter and jaded. People who should have never chosen to work in education for surely they knew from the start it wasn't a 'normal' nine to five they were starting. Eight years of experience has now showed me I was a shortsighted and arrogant little twat who should've respected the older generation just a tiny tad more. Because although I still believe teaching is not a nine to five vocation, it's also not meant to be the soul sucking, time consuming, stress inducing business it often is. It's absurd that when teachers go on trips with students, and then monitor them 24/7, they don't get paid extra, nor do they automatically get a day off to recover. It's absurd that when exams come around teachers are expected to still work 7 hours a day but then also only have three days to correct over a hundred exams. Our job is literally one where we have to do work to prepare for our work, then do our actual work, after which we have more work to do for which there's no actual time. 

I scoffed at teachers who worked part-time, believing that since we work that much anyway I might as well get paid for it. I spent the past five years working more than a full time job, three of those while also doing a masters and I was so proud of myself for never falling down. So boastful about it too. 'Oh me, yeah I work fulltime, yeah I'm doing a masters, no big deal'. Looking back at it, somebody should have done me a favor and hit me in the face with a shovel. Luckily, the burnout took the arrogance right out of me, so there's that. The past couple of months have been some of the hardest of my life. I felt like such an enormous failure, so tired, so sad and so angry all the time. I found absolutely no joy in my job, the one thing I have wanted to do since I was sixteen years old. I would get up at 6:00 am and go to bed at 8:00 pm and still be exhausted the next day. Not a day went by that I didn't spend at least an hour sobbing. And the most frustrating thing is that there's so many people I could (and did) blame: the government for creating our monstrosity of an education system, society for creating such unrealistic expectations of perfection, my school, my students, their parents, my parents, the list goes on. But in the end there's really only one person responsible, and that's me. 

I don't control the government, can't change the education system on my own, can't influence by bosses, my kids, their parents all that much either. But what I can do is draw my own line in the sand. What I can do is acknowledge that there have to be boundaries on what I can do, and then respect the fuck out of those boundaries. When my therapist told me that, I wanted to punch her in the face. For surely, who else will do it, if I don't? How can I say no, when there's things to be done? It's not easy, having boundaries. It's not easy saying no, giving up control, accepting that the universe still spins on even when I (special snowflake that I am) am not there to keep it spinning. But today was the first day of spring break for me. And for the first time in a long time I made it to spring break without feeling that I desperately needed it. Yes, I was ready for a break, but I was also able to get up at a reasonable hour and spend the day doing both fun things and you know adulty boring things. I don't feel like I need to spend an entire week sleeping. My break can now actually be my break. And I got there because for the past few weeks, I did all the things I needed to do, I have just not been doing everything. I told people no, I left school after my lessons were done, I didn't always go the extra mile, I asked for help when I felt I needed it. And now? Now, I still love my job, I am still good at my job but I also have more than just my job. I have time left to be me. To go out to lunch with my husband on my day off. To play games in the evening without feeling bad about tests that I still have to correct. To take naps, to go for walks, to find new hobbies and to write my blog. There's balance now, where before there was only exhaustion.  

And the colleague who scoffed at me yesterday? Well, I hope they never walk into the wall I did. Because honestly it's an experience I wouldn't wish on anybody. At the same time I can't help but feel that  my burnout might have been the best thing that happened to me. Because I feel more like myself than I ever have. I know myself better than I ever have before. I have learned so much from this experience, and you know as a teacher I do adhere to the principle that learning is priceless. So, no I don't wish a burnout upon every young teacher that enters education with a pocket full of dreams and a seemingly unending amount of energy. I do want to share my hard earned wisdom though. There's so much more to life than the work you do, no matter how important it is. There's so much more to you, than the work you do, no matter how good you are at it. Don't forget that you are here to live. You need work to do that, yes, but it is not the pinnacle of your existence. And remember, taking care of yourself does not mean 'me first' it simply means 'me too'.