Moving on Up

I recently posted about applying for a residency to obtain an advanced licensure to become a Special Education teacher. I have been accepted into that program. Though it's going to be intense, I am looking forward to it. I surprised myself that I wanted to do this. But, it all fell into place so easily that I felt like it was meant to be.

I started college in 2004, and I had planned to become a high school History teacher with a minor in English (so, when I fail to write these posts perfectly it's because I have a minor in English--not a major. Hah!). As I progressed, it just didn't feel right. I looked at the many teachers I knew, and none of them looked truly happy. They were stressed and upset about how little they were paid.

I like to listen to my intuition and I like to learn from other people, so I decided to change my degree from Secondary Education to Heritage Resources and Cultural Anthropology. As a young woman, I didn't have a great reason for making this change, other than it felt right. My studies in the Anthropology department were great, though, and I later found out that my degree boils down to strong critical thinking skills, an appreciation for all sorts of people, and was forming me for leadership roles.

I didn't use my degree in Anthropology in the work force, though. Two months after graduating from college, my husband became an officer in the Army, I became pregnant, and we moved to Oklahoma. I actually used my degree in my role as a mother. My kids are smart and I needed to stay at least five steps ahead of them. Critical thinking skills to the max!

When our first child was 15 months old, my husband started training for an upcoming deployment. I thought that I may be able to work outside the house as a small escape during the deployment. I had told Caleb, my husband, that as long as I didn't get pregnant again, I thought I could handle the deployment. Little did I know that I was pregnat with Alafair while I was saying those words. Caleb left a month before I gave birth and returned a year and two weeks later. All that time, it never even occurred to me to even try to use my degree as a source of income. All I could think about was taking care of my children and myself. Then, when Caleb came home from deployment, he, too, was injured, and my attention was focused on him, as well. There was just absolutely no energy left for me to devote to working outside of the home when I was putting everything toward keeping our family strong.

After a year of him being home, I was able to get Aidan into a Head Start program so that he could begin school early. I also found a nice day care where Alafair could socialize with more children. That freed me up to become a barista at a local coffee shop. I chose that job because I knew I could walk away at any moment that my children needed me. Working outside of the house was fun while it lasted, but it only lasted six months, because the Army decided that it was time for us to move.

We moved from Oklahoma to Texas, and Caleb deployed twice in the three years we lived in Texas. I thought that since the kids were in school, I could start working as a tax preparer at H and R Block. But my children needed me even more than before since their father was overseas. Alafair actually seemed to thrive in the Montessori school she was attending, since she was too young for pre-school. Aidan, though, still needed me, and I would often have lunch with him at his cafeteria. That gave him an opportunity to get things off his chest and make it through the rest of the day happily. At this time, we didn't realize that he had a painful autoimmune disease. I just knew that I needed to be there for him. So, all of my spare time went to finding fun experiences for my children to do as they waited for their father to return. H and R Block just didn't have a strong enough pull to keep me away from being available for my children, and I didn't have enough energy to go between working outside of the house and raising my children.

I tried the tactic of working from home and selling for Multi-level Marketing Companies. I enjoyed Beachbody products and Young Living Essential Oils. Because they worked great for me, and I truly cared about other people feeling well in their own bodies. I started to sell them, but I hated the sales' aspect. I wanted to help people with great products, but I didn't want to intrude on their lives. Both of those side jobs fell by the wayside. Then, Caleb came home from his second deployment in three years, and we barely had a month to catch up with each other, before the Army moved us to Kansas.

In Kansas, I did start working outside of the house as a yoga instructor. It was lovely while it lasted. I was teaching from this beautiful yoga shop, located on a historic main street, in Parkville, MO. There were old stone buildings with beautiful golden lights illuminating all the wares the vendors had for sale. There was a charming coffee shop directly across the street from where I worked and it had the absolute best blueberry muffins. It was often rainy there, and I loved when I finished teaching my class and would walk through the rain to get my coffee and blueberry muffin. It was idyllic, and gave me the perfect break from being a stay-at-home mom and military spouse.

Then, the Corona Virus happened, and my whole world shut down. I stopped having an out-of-home job, started teaching yoga from the house, homeschooling my two children, setting up the house for home physical therapy for my son, and home karate, piano, and drum lessons for my children. I almost made it in the work force outside of my home, but the Universe had other plans for us.

After quarantining for two years, we moved from Kansas to New Mexico where I finally felt like I could work more outside of the house. I was a substitute teacher, but I honestly didn't work much, because I often kept my children home from physical school, since we were still being careful about the virus. After a year of that, everything seemed to open up, financially, for me. My children seemed to be emotionally ready to have me available less often, and Caleb hasn't had to deploy nor travel much in the past five years. A lot more balance started being created in our lives.

Feeling like I had more energy, I applied to be the registrar at Aidan's middle school, but, for some reason, the application did not go through correctly. Then, I was told about a residency to become a Special Education teacher within a year's time. All the documents I needed to apply for that were already on my computer, and the process was very easy, so I felt like it was an offer too good to refuse.

I'm just so surprised at myself for feeling like this is the right thing for me to do. I know how hard it is to be a SPED teacher, I've heard the complaints, I've seen the piles of paperwork. And, yet, here I am, saying, "Take me!" However, I'm nowhere near the same woman that I was in 2004. I have nearly two decades more experience than back then. I've been developed through love and loss, travel, Anthropology, Yoga, Clairvoyant, Mediumship training, dedicated relationships to the people I love, and I've developed more compassion than anger toward people. I've learned so much more than my original Education degree would have offered me, and I feel like I'm actually going to be happy in this role as a teacher.