Here I am, up once again with the sunrise and several hours before Scott and Ringo will wake up. I think part of the problem is that my body is re-adjusting to a work schedule, and I woke up this morning at the same time I'd have to wake up on a weekday. I know plenty of working adults who have this problem. It's annoying that circadian rhythms don't understand the concept of sleeping in on Sundays.
But besides that, I'm not sleeping well because I'm still being plagued by teaching nightmares. Seriously?! Can't we ever move on from this? My life has moved on. I'm really enjoying my new job and I'm feeling more at peace with my life than I ever have.
So why am I still reliving all the worst moments from my classroom last year? Is this some kind of mild form of PTSD?
Perhaps part of it is that I'm still doing my part-time TFA job, where I support corps members by meeting with them individually and planning workshops for them. Yesterday I met with a new teacher who needed help with her classroom management and planning her next unit. We worked for over 3 hours and she was so excited with the work that she did. She was curious about my past work as a teacher (naturally.) So I was forced to explain, once again, why I quit teaching. She was pretty non-judgmental about it, especially when I talked about how working 80-hour weeks completely burnt me out. She was really supportive about the fact that I now work at Stanford University.
I don't want to stop doing this TFA job because it helps me feel connected to the mission and allows me to have some impact without having to kill me. But it does seem to bring up the bad memories in nightmares. Hopefully as I get more settled into my new job and my life continues to move on, those memories will just fade into the background.
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