\u201cI think I realize I just called the wrong person,\u201d I exhaled in a massive huff to Andy, though I confess this statement was more of a realization I spoke aloud to myself instead of one I needed to express to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that?\u201d he asked, and I knew his question was not in reference to what I said.<\/p>\n
The answer was it was a school lunch bell because I was making a super rare call to him during my teaching hours. In fact, in the past twelve years of being a high school English teacher, I have probably called my husband a maximum of seven times at work, so it was understandable the school bell caught his attention over my dejected huff of breath. But it was third period\u2014my planning period\u2014and I was in a panic . . . which is exactly why I had called my mother before<\/em> I called him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing calling me while you\u2019re in school?!\u201d Her voice was full of alarm. She is a retired teacher, which means she knows firsthand there is no moment to pause for a chat on the phone at school.<\/p>\n \u201cMama, should I go through with it?\u201d and I took a deep inhale before continuing.<\/p>\n \u201cShould I submit my letter of resignation?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n My poor mother\u2014I had made her answer this question more times than we could both count. Yet somehow, sitting at my desk in my empty classroom with my resignation letter printed, signed, and scanned and the email to Human Resources loaded in front of me, I was hesitating. Then I was overthinking. Then I was panicking.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean maybe I\u2019m jumping too early. Maybe I should do one more year of teaching? Maybe I should just wait. Maybe I\u2019m reckless\u2014I always think I\u2019m too responsible, but maybe I\u2019m actually reckless. We may not have enough money right now so this could be a very bad decision. You know what? All of this suddenly seems too sudden. Maybe I won\u2019t do it\u2014maybe I shouldn\u2019t<\/em> do it. I think I\u2019m freaking out\u2014it\u2019s just\u2014I\u2019m just\u2014I don\u2019t know what<\/em> to do. I mean, should I submit my letter of resignation<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n I needed someone much wiser than me to make this verdict because my apparently incompetent mass-of-a-brain could not even click the paperclip icon to attach a letter to an email before I hypothetically sent the message.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, let\u2019s think about this,\u201d my mother said, and I could tell she was mentally setting down all of the thoughts she had been carrying before my call. Now she was picking up what I was placing before her. \u201cMaybe you could say, \u2018I would like to resign now but maybe\u2014if I don\u2019t get another job\u2014then I won\u2019t resign and\u2014’\u201d<\/p>\n Y\u2019all, it was here I realized I called the wrong person, so I politely ended the call with my mother then rang the right<\/em> person\u2014my husband.<\/p>\n \u201cShould I really send my letter of resignation?\u201d I asked him, and I held my breath. I felt defeated, confused, trapped, and hopeless.<\/p>\n \u201cYes!\u201d he exclaimed without hesitation. \u201cWe\u2019ve been through this before. This is what we\u2019ve been working to do<\/em>. We\u2019ve talked about you leaving teaching for a while now, and every year, you sign another contract. This is definitely something you need<\/em> to do.\u201d <\/p>\n And he gave a slight pause only long enough to emphasize his last two words: \u201cSend it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I hung up from Andy and took a long moment to myself.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s why my decision was a big two-call-type of deal . . .<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been teaching for twelve years\u2014twelve stable years of ten-month contracts that award me one week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks off for the combo of Christmas and New Year\u2019s, one week off for Spring Break, and additional days off for a sprinkling of other holidays before my contract ends and I have two months off for the summer. My life is largely controlled by bells, which first ring to signify the start of my day at 7:05 a.m. then continue towards the end of my day at 2:45 p.m. A significant amount of my class is timed too: There\u2019s five-minutes for writing or reading exercises, ten-minutes for silent reading, fifteen minutes for grammar or literary term exercises, and ten minutes for vocabulary, which leaves the majority of class time for essays or literature. The school\u2019s calendar is mapped out as extensively as the bell schedule with every fire drill, hurricane drill, intruder drill, faculty meeting, department meeting, grade-level meeting, and committee meeting in place every month before the school doors open for the year.<\/p>\n Monotony may be dull to some, but the predictable nature of teaching is one reason why I respect the career.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even teenagers\u2019 moods can be roughly determined by two simple words before they step into my classroom: \u201cGood morning\u201d or \u201cGood afternoon.\u201d My career is so stable that it is routine<\/em>, and I deeply appreciate that because before I was a teacher, I was a live news reporter, and my career was the complete opposite.<\/p>\n For seven years, I worked at the ABC news station in Richmond, Virginia.<\/p>\n I worked and pushed and strove until I moved up from an entry level newsroom position to producer (create newscasts and write scripts that anchors read) . . .<\/p>\n then to video journalist (shoot, report, and<\/em> edit in one role) . . .<\/p>\n then to live news reporter.<\/p>\n Each position required different hours: There was the semi-normal shift of 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m . . . then the relaxed nightshift of 2:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., along with weekends . . . followed by the tough 2:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. If there was inclement weather, crews could be on the clock for twenty-four or more hours. And even if you were off, you weren\u2019t actually off because there were on-call shifts, so a guaranteed call came in at all hours for breaking news, which meant shifts with no ends in sight. Determination of schedules or vacation time or promotions were largely based on looks, ratings, and favor with managers. My past life held a grueling job for more reasons than this, but \u201croutine\u201d and \u201cstability\u201d were words as rare as watching an entire newscast filled solely with positive news.<\/p>\n It was around this time, too, that I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis<\/a>, which doctors found it important to point out that stress can trigger the disease and, therefore, increase the risk of getting MS.<\/p>\n I say all of this in the hopes that my words capture how relieved I was to transition into the profession of \u201cteacher.\u201d Teaching, with its stability, brought me more comfort than you can ever know.<\/p>\n But now, I felt as if I was holding the security I strove hard to obtain in my own hands, and what was scarier was that I was on the verge of shaking it up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yet, my husband had a point. This is what we\u2014what I\u2014have labored tirelessly to achieve.<\/p>\n My multiple sclerosis continues to put life into perspective. It is because of this disease that Andy and I took our first step towards RV life by buying our 1965 Clark Cortez motorhome<\/a>.<\/p>\n We mushed the two dreams we first discussed the first day we met\u2014him, restoring an old vehicle and me, traveling; and out popped a vision of overhauling an antique RV. We took our time over the course of nearly six years<\/em>, vowing to ourselves not to let our Cortez restoration consume us and also promising to keep that distant glimmer of a full-time travel dream alive . . . someday.<\/p>\n When COVID hit, I was reminded again of what is important. Life is too short. The good health I have now will, in fact, deteriorate. Andy\u2019s immigration process<\/a> will remain delicate and fraught with expiring time as the government teeters us back and forth over what we may have and what we may not have. Because we have largely lived with not knowing what tomorrow will bring, all of this means we try actively to consolidate problems and focus on what does matter: our little family and our two dreams.<\/p>\n With Dream One RV Restoration nearly complete, Dream Two Full-Time Travel is quickly approaching . . . if we let it.<\/p>\n To get there, though, we needed to make big changes, and I began by analyzing my profession. I needed to get a remote position.<\/p>\n It is odd how life can take you on a winding path so far from where you started, but what is odder is that we sometimes forget to look back.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I remembered that I went to university to work in publishing, so I dove headfirst into making this happen.<\/p>\n I worked part-time as an assistant editor<\/a> at two magazines focusing on nomadic lifestyles and travel. It was a dream job, but after two years, the owner\/publisher suddenly decided to stop production of one of the magazines and let go of his editorial department and a graphic designer. The news was gutting and in came in the form of identical emails with the words \u201cHappy Friday\u201d and \u201cThis is your last day\u201d mere sentences apart.<\/p>\n Yet, the heartbreaking setback pushed me further, and my stubbornness to find my place in publishing prevailed. I was then hired part-time as a project manager and editor at an independent book publishing company.<\/p>\n While I always imagined my publishing home would be with a travel magazine, I confess my love for books undoubtably overrides that.<\/p>\n Still, the combination of these two part-time jobs has stretched over the course of the past three years<\/em>, which means I have worked my full-time teaching career only to come home and work my part-time job. That\u2019s a minimum of working fourteen hours<\/em> every Monday through Friday for the past three years.<\/p>\n \u201cI just realized,\u201d I told Andy the other day, \u201cthat if I work for fourteen hours, drive one hour to and one hour back from school, and sleep for eight hours\u2014that equals twenty-four hours. That equals one full day. And I repeat that every weekday. There is no time in between where I simply . . . stop.\u201d<\/p>\n I have been and am literally living to work<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This realization was unnerving and depressing. Years of my life had vanished before I even noticed what had happened.<\/p>\n The more I analyzed my loss of life, the more I realized I had become a hollowed-out shell of who I once was and who I wanted to be. I no longer wrote or edited video or posted pictures or even took pictures or even went places where I wanted to take pictures. The last hike Andy and I went on was over a year ago, which is reason enough to diagnose us with a genuine sickness. After all, hiking<\/a> is why we met and what we did every weekend for years without fail. It is the only religion we have ever practiced.<\/p>\n Yet . . . I continued clocking extended hours day in and day out. I kept ignoring a pledge I made as a young child to never let work consume me as it does too many. Life outside<\/em> of any job\u2019s door is what matters more . . . and I had come too close to forgetting this.<\/p>\n As I sat in my empty classroom with the lunch bells still ringing and my resignation letter still sitting one click from being attached to a Human Resources email, the past years raced through my mind and then I heard Andy\u2019s words again: \u201cThis is definitely something you need<\/em> to do.\u201d I guess I realized then this is<\/em> what I have labored tirelessly to achieve.<\/p>\n It was time to take the dreams that we had nurtured so passionately and so fully and transition them now into plans<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So I did it.<\/p>\n I took a deep breath as I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I clicked the paperclip icon to attach my resignation letter, and then I clicked \u201cSend.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m going to vomit everywhere,\u201d I texted my friend, Jess. She and her husband Greg traveled full time for years in a van<\/a> they built out themselves. I met Jess at our magazines job, and I love her\u2014She is smart, tenacious, kind, perceptive, and loyal. And in that moment, I knew she would understand me more than I could tell her.<\/p>\n \u201cStay focused on what will go right, instead of what could go wrong,\u201d Jess wrote back.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Later that night, I had a dream that I climbed a very tall tree. It resembled one from the front yard of the house I grew up in\u2014a towering oak with branches spread wide and large green leaves . . . .<\/p>\n In case I have not written about this before, I have a vintage dream book\u2014it was my mother\u2019s, and she swore by it while handing it down to me because, when I was younger, I became fascinated on whether dreams had deeper meanings. I have kept it since and sometimes find myself scanning through its pages to see if my dream interpretations will later have meaning. I will not say I swear by this book, but I will say more often than not the words have eerily predicted my future. For instance, I once had a dream that I was onboard a ship that was getting battered in a life-threatening hurricane. When I woke, I was in a cold sweat and unable to put the dream aside, so I looked through my dream book and found the word \u201cHurricane.\u201d The interpretation is as follows: \u201cTinea Ballater, the famous expert on dreams, says in one of her books, \u2018I wouldn\u2019t wish this dream on anybody.\u2019 In fact it is one of the worst things you can dream about, indicating that an extremely shaky period lies ahead in which, if you put on foot wrong, the result may be disastrous.\u201d A few months later, my then-husband and I realized we were living two different lives that did not merge. We decided to separate then filed for divorce, and that plunged me into days so dark they nearly enveloped me.<\/p>\n Back to my story now: I could not get past how calm, happy, and warm I felt in that massive, leafy tree as I climbed up and up, so I flipped through my dream book again. The \u201cTree\u201d interpretation is as follows: \u201cIf you dream about a tree with plenty of foliage . . . it indicates future financial prosperity, and a happy marriage . . . . If you climb the tree, not only will you achieve both these goals, but an even greater blessing\u2014contentment.\u201d Then the book continues: \u201cA leafy oak indicates changes for the better in your work environment . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Reading this, I realized one feeling I have never felt is contentment. In fact, the word that describes me best is \u201cseek\u201d (which is why I named what-was-my\/now our website \u201cSoul of a Seeker\u201d<\/a>). My insatiable desire to continue to search for more has always engulfed me. The simple thought that contentment may be on the horizon for me is both overwhelming and empowering.<\/p>\n As the former editorial assistant at the travel magazines, my job was to comb through pitches, find writers, and supporting authors with their stories. All of their stories had one key trait in common, and their advice is one I distinctly remember: The first step is scary\u2014terrifying. It is enough to stop, to turn around, to cancel all plans, to not go. That first step is the hardest. So just do it\u2014don\u2019t overthink, don\u2019t question yourself, don\u2019t stop. Instead, keep moving forward. Focus on that faint and glimmering-light of a dream ahead because it glow brighter and brighter as you keep moving toward it.<\/p>\n Take the first step because you will never regret it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Y\u2019all. I just took my first step.<\/p>\n Fornari, Anna. 999 Dreams Interpreted<\/em>, Gallery Books, 1990.<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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\nLike this:<\/h3>\n