Return to Work

I received the email today from Human Resources, the Return to Work package of forms.  Now it begins.  For real.  My head is spinning. 

Looking at my resume, the piece of paper that is supposed to define me to a principal, so that they'll want me on their staff... so much of it came to a full stop after 2008, I feel woefully inadequate.  Kate was born in January 2009, and although I participated on a number of projects in my school, I didn't have that much to do with things on a board level, or on a professional development level.  I don't know how much this matters, but I feel like it does.  I feel more like a liability than an asset.  Why would someone want to hire me, someone so out of the loop? 

But then I think about who I am as a person, how I've grown as a human being over the past six years as a mother, and I think that anyone would be lucky to have me.  I do great things in my school and in my classroom.  I believe that.  I know that.  I don't always love the day to day crazy of being a teacher, but I love being a teacher, I do, I have come to realize how much I love it and I don't want to do anything else.

I have a job at Blue Willow PS, full time, 45-50 minutes away from home.  I don't want to work full time, and I don't want to work 45-50 minutes away.  (Forget the fact that I'm supposed to go back May 19th, but I want to go back in September.)  So begins the process of getting permission to reduce my teaching load, and obtaining a transfer to a school closer to home.  So begins the daily checking of the vacancy list to see if there is anything there.  So begins sending out resumes to principals, and going for interviews. 

I have no idea what to think about any of this.  The one good thing is that I really do like the school that I've been teaching at since 2004.  I really do.  Going back there wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, not even close... but.  But it isn't what I want.

Ultimately, and one way or another, things will work out.  Time will tell what the future holds.  Here's to a leap into the darkness!