Wow! This feels good!
About this time last year I posted my last blog entry here on year2tastic and headed over to my already existing 'Confessions of a Try-hard' Wordpress blog in a bid to streamline my on-line life for a variety of reasons.
In truth, it's sucked!
It was not for me and I missed the fun, vibrant 'year2tastic' me!
For the past year I have been leading a split life- my heart (and some of my products) still say 'year2tastic' but my Insta and logo all read 'Try-hard Teacher'.
I feel like I've lost touch with who I am as an 'on-line teacher'.
Before I made this switch I had a growing profile and I don't mean in follower numbers but in connections. I had developed real friendships and had a great network of teachers across the globe whom I could claim to 'know'- I had found my tribe!
These days however, my tribe have moved on and left me behind.
So if things were going so well then why did I decide to change things?
In truth I was struggling, I had just found out that we were expecting our first baby (Little Miss T made her debut in October) and I was thinking ahead to how my life would change especially once I was on Maternity leave and would have no classroom to fall back on for blogging content. Streamlining my lifestyle and teaching blog seemed the sensible thing to do!
But more than this, I was struggling with my identity as a teacher.
I think schools, classrooms and teaching teams are highly personal things. We are a family, our school is our home and our classrooms are our own little worlds where we get to express ourselves and our place in the family and ours was changing.
Our school had just got a new Head Teacher who had come in all guns blazing and was changing the school at a rapid pace- I wasn't sure how I fitted into things any more, my home and family didn't feel the same.
Things I thought I was good at and felt confident about were now issues to be challenged or changed. I've a list as long as my arm of things I would have usually done without a second thought but was now second-guessing or being second-guessed about and I felt unsteady.
I was worn out from being supportive and trusting whilst often biting my tongue to try and be diplomatic. All the time, feeling my zest and enjoyment of teaching ebbing away as it felt like I was constantly being judged or 'adjusted'.
Don't get me wrong, I truly believed in many of the new changes and fully supported the reasoning behind them but was struggling with the way and speed they were coming in.
It felt like our parents had just split up, our mum had moved her new partner in as soon as Dad had left and now he was tying to be our new one and we were trying to pull away from the uncomfortable hug- you know the feeling!
Maybe it was just me but I've never wanted the Summer Holidays to arrive as much as I did last year.
People looked at me, 7 months pregnant, and presumed this was why I looked grey and shattered.
In truth- it was work wearing me out!
So here I am, 5 months into my Maternity leave and loving every moment of it.
As a new mummy to a 4 month old I have far more energy than I did last July and the time with my lovely little pumpkin is actually giving me back my love of the classroom.
I know why I teach, I know just how important the little minds we help shape are, I KNOW that I am great at what I do and I actually want to do it again!
Step 1 to getting back the old, fun-loving and vibrant me is to blog…. so here I am!
