I knew from the first moment that I held the flute in my hands that there was something magical, something calling me to it. I felt challenged, I felt joyful, I felt like I had purpose. In the band room, I felt accepted, valued, like it was where I belonged. It didn't take more than a year or two to decide, to know firmly in my heart: I'm going to do this forever, I'm going to be a band teacher.
High school served as confirmation: though my entire life was chaos and constant storms filled with confusion and emotion, the band room and my flute were what kept me afloat. I poured my soul into music, and it was a fitting outlet for all of my intense feelings, all of my pain. The band room continued to be my "safe place" and a shelter from the storm. I spent as much time there as I could, doing everything I could to cling tightly. Sometimes it would be doing odd jobs for the band director, other times it might be just sitting in the director's office shooting the bull. I don't know if my band directors ever knew that they were my lighthouse, my beacon of hope, but I hope they did.
My feelings of question and failure first came in college. I failed Piano 2. I received heavy criticism in my band auditions numerous times. My Conducting 2 teacher made me feel inferior and made sure that I knew I'd never amount to much: he let me pass with a C. I pushed through, though. I made it to student teaching and felt confident that I had found my place, that the band room was still the best place for me. I found myself falling in love with every aspect of the band director life: the music, the connections with students, even things like horn repair and loading buses. Every minute of my time in the band rooms where I student taught felt like home, felt like my calling.
Then came all of the applications with no response, the interviews that ended with rejection. The hours I spent in the car, dressed to impress, left me feeling empty and scorned. Why am I wasting my time? Clearly I am failing! It took nearly a year to get any job, and even then it was pure luck and connections that this job practically fell into my lap. I spent much of my time at my first job somewhere in between feeling like a failure and feeling like a success. Some days I'd spend my hour-long commute home in the silence of my tears, other days I'd be blasting music and dancing: there was no in between. Uncertainty became a common place, and I was assured by others this uncertainty would pass with time. It never did, at least not completely.
For the last four years, I've found myself continuing to waver, to question, to feel inadequate. With every step, there was that constant feeling of fear, the sounds of worry eating away at my soul. Oh, they're going to figure out you are full of crap soon enough! What did you just do?! You'll be called to the principal's office over that, just you wait! There were nights I'd lose hours of sleep worrying over a parent email or replaying a failed rehearsal in my head. There were days that I'd drive away unsure if I wanted to sob uncontrollably or beat my steering wheel to a pulp. The highs felt amazing, but the lows started consuming me entirely for days or weeks at a time.
I knew the day was coming, it was only a matter of time. I knew last spring, when I found myself putting things off and spending my planning periods doing anything I could to avoid real work. I knew in July, when the thought of going back to work made me feel so repulsed that I thought I would vomit. I knew when I sent an email in the middle of the night to my boss explaining that I was being hospitalized. I knew in November when L said that she was being asked too many questions about my health and stability, things she shouldn't have known as a supervisor but knew as my friend. I knew in January when the cops and ambulance came to work, catching my boss off guard. I knew as the days started creeping into May and there was no news of being rehired. I just knew in my head, my heart, even my feet...I knew I was going to be fired.
I've been told to not look at this as a failure, but several parts of me instantly go there. My cognitive distortions run away with the idea and come back with a completed novel spelling out my shortcomings in full detail. You did this to yourself! You're going to just be wasting time and money going back to school...it's only a matter of time before you fail at the new career, too. I worry that my desire to jump into mental health is driven by personal interest and the same ideology that drove me to teaching: finding shelter from the storm.
An awesome friend of mine recently brought up that she often "can't shake the feeling that the world wasn't meant for me." I can totally relate to that in so many ways, and as I sit here looking around this empty void of a classroom, the feelings are almost overpowering. I don't know that teaching was ever really meant for me, just like as a middle and high school student I felt that the confines of teenage life was never really for me, either. I don't ever "fit the mold" of most anywhere I try to place myself: I am entirely too volatile, too outrageous, too unique. I always felt out of place, and still do. I constantly stop to question my purpose, my existence, because I merely cannot wrap my brain around who I am and what I was made to achieve.
At the end of the day, I just want to find satisfaction in my life. I want to feel joy. To quote Dr. R, I want "a live worth living and being present for." That life was not standing in front of a band room, but it's also not hiding from the world inside my house eating junk and binge watching shows on Netflix (though that was most of my life last summer...). I can only hope that my life worth living and being present for comes into focus as I gravitate towards something new, something in which I so desperately want to work out. All I have ever wanted is to help, to feel myself positively impacting the lives of others...so maybe therapy is that place?
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