Looking Up

The data of my past month shows me that I am consistently doing much better. So much so, in fact, that we are coming to the "What's next?" conversation. My husband and I need to have that, and we kind of started it this past weekend.

I know of a few places I could look to work at, mainly places I've worked before. But I want to be sure I'm not throwing myself out of the frying pan and into the fire. I feel burned by the blow-out that happened to me last year.

But I need to remember that there are many differences between me now and me then:

-I'm differently medicated
-I have great therapy
-I know myself a lot better with the new diagnosis
-My attitude is positive
-I'll only look for part time work for the future
-Am doing part time volunteering now which is satisfying and not stressful

It's hard for me to tell if I should try to take a very different direction from the one I was going. I feel at my best when I'm in a classroom, regardless of the age of the students. And I am limited to school year hours because it is simply too expensive and stressful and unrealistic to try to cover nearly 12 weeks of child care for my own children while I work somewhere.

I'm even thinking about subbing again, which I haven't thought about for ages. I do have some ambivalence there, but frankly I have ambivalence about just about everything right now. I feel too old to start over and I just got my degree, and I want to use it. Just not full time with two year olds. That's the take home.

So I'll start sniffing around with NO COMMITMENT at this time, just testing the waters, and see what happens. Just getting back to volunteering has lightened my spirits. I think it will soon be time to start talking to people, seeing what makes sense and what's feasible.

Baby steps. (I hate that expression but it's quite appropriate in this context.)

Drop by drop.