Sitting on stupid benches in Greenpoint
Two weeks ago, I decided to quit my job.
For the past year, I've been working as a teacher at a school in the Bronx. Prior to that, I was a student at school in Chicago, and before I even picked up my diploma, I was in teacher boot camp, without a moment to breathe. I was thrown into a middle school classroom full of students who were years behind where they needed to be, and not only was it a challenge to bring them at least somewhere close to grade level, but I had no clue about how to make a bunch of 12 year olds listen to their ill-equipped and inexperienced new teacher. Without a doubt, this year was the hardest, most depressing, and exhausting year of my life. I would come home almost every night, too tired to even cry about the horrible day I'd had. And for a long time, I thought that this was the way my life post-college was meant to look. Work long hours, come home, fall asleep, wake up and do it all over again.
But then summer came, and something magical happened. I realized, "Holy shit, I live in New York now," and I made the city mine. I made new friends, I went out to bars, I explored all sorts of neighborhoods, and I was, for the first time since I'd moved to New York, and quite possibly the first time since first starting college, truly happy.
But part of me knew that this happiness was only temporary. In the back of my head, I kept reminding myself that summer would end and I would have to go back to teaching and being miserable. As the summer went on, this nagging feeling grew worse and worse, and eventually I realized that I didn't want to go back into the classroom.
That didn't seem possible to me, at first. I mean, what else would I do? I came to New York to be a teacher, and I had it in my head that if I quit, then I'm failing at my goal. But then that idea started to unravel--what were my goals? What did I want from my life? Do I want to be a teacher forever? What else could I do with my life?
I remember going to meet my friend, Ollie, at El Beit in Williamsburg, with all these questions in my head. After sitting quietly for a couple of minutes, I blurted out to him, "I don't think I want to teach anymore." And once I said that, it suddenly occurred to me that this was the only thing, right now, that I was sure of, and that's ok. I didn't need to know where my life was going or what to do next. I knew enough in that teaching was making me miserable, and the rest would sort of figure itself out. So I walked into my principal's office later that week, and told him that I would not be coming back for the next schoolyear. I can say with the utmost confidence that quitting was the best decision I've made in my life.
I had some reservations about this decision. Although I'm confident now that I made the right decision, I did go into my principal's office only about 60% sure that I was doing the right thing. I think the biggest issue I had to contend with was the fact that I felt like I was somehow failing at something. I told all my friends and family that I was going to move to New York, and take my shiny new college degree and use it to help teach inner-city students. And that just didn't work out, and that somehow translated to me failing. Eventually, and I'm still working on coming to terms with this one, I think it's the exact opposite. At 23 years old, I don't need to have my shit figured out. I don't need to be miserable in order to fulfill some vision of what I believed success to be. Success, I think at this stage in my life, is realizing that I have so much freedom now to do whatever the hell I want, and I don't have to be embarking on some crazy career path so early in my life. For some reason, I believed success to mean that I should have my shit completely figured out. That I should already be on some career track that was definite and would take me from now until retirement. That success meant knowing where I would live, who my friends were, and what I would do for the rest of my life. But why? Why can't I just fuck around? Who says I need to know where my life is going? Who says I'm ready for my career to define me? These were all questions I continued to ask myself when weighing the decision about quitting, and it occurred to me that my life doesn't need to be so...defined, I guess you could say. I'm totally ok with just doing the things that make me happy and not worrying about the future.
But then summer came, and something magical happened. I realized, "Holy shit, I live in New York now," and I made the city mine. I made new friends, I went out to bars, I explored all sorts of neighborhoods, and I was, for the first time since I'd moved to New York, and quite possibly the first time since first starting college, truly happy.
But part of me knew that this happiness was only temporary. In the back of my head, I kept reminding myself that summer would end and I would have to go back to teaching and being miserable. As the summer went on, this nagging feeling grew worse and worse, and eventually I realized that I didn't want to go back into the classroom.
That didn't seem possible to me, at first. I mean, what else would I do? I came to New York to be a teacher, and I had it in my head that if I quit, then I'm failing at my goal. But then that idea started to unravel--what were my goals? What did I want from my life? Do I want to be a teacher forever? What else could I do with my life?
I remember going to meet my friend, Ollie, at El Beit in Williamsburg, with all these questions in my head. After sitting quietly for a couple of minutes, I blurted out to him, "I don't think I want to teach anymore." And once I said that, it suddenly occurred to me that this was the only thing, right now, that I was sure of, and that's ok. I didn't need to know where my life was going or what to do next. I knew enough in that teaching was making me miserable, and the rest would sort of figure itself out. So I walked into my principal's office later that week, and told him that I would not be coming back for the next schoolyear. I can say with the utmost confidence that quitting was the best decision I've made in my life.
I had some reservations about this decision. Although I'm confident now that I made the right decision, I did go into my principal's office only about 60% sure that I was doing the right thing. I think the biggest issue I had to contend with was the fact that I felt like I was somehow failing at something. I told all my friends and family that I was going to move to New York, and take my shiny new college degree and use it to help teach inner-city students. And that just didn't work out, and that somehow translated to me failing. Eventually, and I'm still working on coming to terms with this one, I think it's the exact opposite. At 23 years old, I don't need to have my shit figured out. I don't need to be miserable in order to fulfill some vision of what I believed success to be. Success, I think at this stage in my life, is realizing that I have so much freedom now to do whatever the hell I want, and I don't have to be embarking on some crazy career path so early in my life. For some reason, I believed success to mean that I should have my shit completely figured out. That I should already be on some career track that was definite and would take me from now until retirement. That success meant knowing where I would live, who my friends were, and what I would do for the rest of my life. But why? Why can't I just fuck around? Who says I need to know where my life is going? Who says I'm ready for my career to define me? These were all questions I continued to ask myself when weighing the decision about quitting, and it occurred to me that my life doesn't need to be so...defined, I guess you could say. I'm totally ok with just doing the things that make me happy and not worrying about the future.
So this is what this blog is meant to chronicle. I call it a belated gap year since I think most people take the time to be in their weird transient phase either right after high school or right out of college. However, I took a little more time to realize that I needed a period of time to fuck around and not be so stable. I want to make sure that I remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. I feel like it's easy to get caught up in this idea that you have to be on a career track and your life has to be completely figured out, and I know I need to remind myself that being a homeless vagabond for a couple of years is ok. I don't know that this blog will really have any unifying theme, either. But that's ok, too. Lots of things make me happy, and all I really want is to remember those things and share them with others. This summer has been the best summer of my life, and I hope this blog will come to represent the best couple of months, or even years of my life.
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