Day #34

Tonight was "Meet Your Teacher Night" at the school where I taught for the past two years. It also happens to be the school my two daughters attend. I made it back into town from my work trip just in time for us to all go as a family and check out their classrooms and get all the beginning of the school year stuff picked up. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that school here starts in the first few days of August.

This was the first time in over a decade where I was not the teacher on the other side of this equation. For the first time, I got to be the mom and attend a school function as the parent, instead of relegating the job to my husband while I worked. For once, I got to do something school related with my children, and I loved it! This is my oldest child's final year in elementary school, so I made it just in time. I know once middle school rolls around, she probably won't want me within 20 yards of her events (not that I won't be there anyway...).

I expected to feel something about the start of a new school year and my not being there. Amazingly, I feel nothing except an anticlimactic sense of relief. That right there speaks volumes about the correctness of my decision to step away from teaching.

I don't miss it. At all.