Spaghetti bowl

Right now I am working at a day care facility in Alpine. I'm not just babysitting all day though, there is a preschool part of it that I teach and the kids are involved in structured activities most of the day, at least I try to keep them under control :) Most days I come home from work completely exhausted, not physically but emotionally. It is hard to be surrounded by so many kids all day long and feeling like there is no escape. Although I believe my patience levels have increased since I began working there in August, I don't feel like I have enough patience to continue working there. I've been debating for a while now on whether to stay for another school year or be done and find somewhere else to go when this school year ends in May. Just when I think that I have made up my mind to move on, something happens at work that makes me think twice. For example,

A little while ago this little boy comes up to me as I am leaving work and says "Miss Chantelle, will you be here tomorrow?" I answered "Yes I will be here tomorrow." He smiles and then asks me "You'll always be here, right? You're not going to ever go away right?" It broke my heart to see his face as he was asking if I would ever leave him.

Then the other day a mother told me that her daughter informed her the night before that she wanted to be teacher just like Miss Chantelle when she grows up. Her mother told me that she was impressed and appreciated my influence on her daughter. She said "I tried to tell her she should be a doctor, or a lawyer but she wouldn't give in, I even told her she could be a rockstar and she still insisted that she was going to be like you. My daughter really looks up to you and enjoys being here."

I am torn. A part of me loves the kids so much and wants to stay, but the other half of me is telling me that I am not completely happy there and that there is something out there that is better for me. When I weigh out the pros and cons of the situation, the cons outweigh the pros by quite a bit. The drive is a half hour each way and it would be nice to have that extra money that I'm spending on gas. I am emotionally burned out, by the end of the day I feel like I am about to snap. And the list goes on. Although being a teacher is so rewarding and there is nothing better than seeing the light come on in a child's eyes in the middle of a lesson and you know that they ARE listening and they DO understand; I believe that other jobs have to have that same rewarding feeling in some way or another.

I still have a little while before I have to make any real decisions, in the mean time I am on the job hunt and weighing out my options. It's great to be at these crossroads and know that I can do just about anything I want and I can go in any direction. It's amazing that I have been given the agency to do that and making decision is possible, but sometimes I wish I wasn't overwhelmed with options. A fork in the road is one thing but a one way road that suddenly turns into a spaghetti bowl full of long skinny roads is another.