Hey y’all!
I hope your November is off to a good start. Mine is going pretty okay (especially considering the fact that Mercury is in retrograde right now).
Yesterday, I took a planned personal day. It felt pretty good honestly. Before I started teaching, I began to follow some teachers on instagram and a lot of their advice for first year teachers were pretty good. However, one stood out to me that I put above all of the words of wisdom I’ve heard: take your personal days. A lot of teachers get burned out. Some leave after one year in the classroom. Some even will put others before them at the detriment of their mental health. I didn’t want that to be me and up until last week, I never took a personal day.
It was around the end of September when I saw that a lot of teachers were beginning to feel overwhelmed and so was I. Now, I will like to point out that I’m a first year teacher. It’s hard out there for first years. Its mainly about survival. When I tell you they were right…its so hard. Every day I feel like I make so many mistakes. I’m still learning how to be more organized. I’m learning how to work with youth from challenging backgrounds. My students are challenging and a teacher named Megan (whom I follow on instagram) posted something in which she mentioned that eighth graders haven’t really learned empathy yet so they can be cruel at times and mean and they tend to not see you as a human being. That makes lots of sense because when I tell you that I have a time with my students…like its really hard. I come home defeated all the time.
I kept feeling in my spirit that I needed to take a personal day. My spirit was feeling worn down and I was starting to dread going to work. I knew I needed a break. Did I feel guilty about taking a personal day? Heck yeah! Did it feel good to my should to take the break? F**k yeah! It was literally such a relaxing day! My roomie (and best gal pal) and I decided to go to Universal’s Volcano Bay since I never went. It was my first time at a water park so I was really excited. We went on water slides, a cool magnetic aqua coaster, chilled down the lazy rivers and went to the wade pool. We stayed out there for like a few hours (the park is kinda small) then went home and chilled the rest of the night.
It felt so good to my soul. I went back feeling a bit more relaxed and got on with the rest of my day at work. If you ever feel like you need a day (or a few), do it babe. Trust me, your health is way more important than any task or job. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Do what makes you feel good.
Nessa D 