I just had an actual out-of-body experience. Honestly. An actual, looking-at-myself-like-a-stranger, objective view on my life.

Let me set the scene. It's 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. I've been teaching all day in my maybe 75 sq. ft. classroom (smaller than my sophomore dorm room). For the past hour, I've beentaping, then rearranging over and over, each letter of the alphabet around the ceiling of my classroom. It is mind-numbing tedium. I was taping on the letter J when I suddenly looked at my hand moving to place it and this thought flashed through my head: "Am I an elementary school teacher?" And I don't mean a qualified one or that it was thought with sarcasm. My mind was blank for those few moments, and it was as if my analytical, college student self was watching the alphabet placement with confusion...and then I almost laughed, but anxiety held me back. I have been so ensconced in this job that I've never seen it objectively, or considered its relevance to my life on a greater level. But, now that I think about it, how in the world did I end up working in this little room, spending hours taping little letters on the wall, or arranging folder, or filling out practically meaningless paperwork. In my salad days- which eerily seem quite in the past- this would not have been a place I could have pictured myself. The hours upon hours of dissexting educational theory and Spanish grammar at "my" table in the Clayton Starbucks can't have been pointing me toward this. I now feel simultaneously defeated, confused, and despondent. The moment of out-of-body fear was so unique that I now feel that I owe it to my inner psyche to deconstruct its meaning :)
Which is not to say that teaching is not a critically important profession or that there weren't moments of complete magic today. One of my students put a postcard in my mailbox to tell me that Johnny Appleseed walked around Ohio with "bear feet." A student who I'm positive has ADHD (emphasis on the H) shook hands with me today, to guarantee that he would focus, and he did. And a huge trouble-maker came up to me out of the blue and gave me a hug.
At the same time, there are several factors missing that I long for in a career: professional stability, delineation between work and life, and a higher level of challenge. Of course, I'm challenged every day at school, with keeping student well-behaved, planning 9 different lessons, and mangaging my space, but my mind is rarely challenged. I only ever have deep, transformative conversations with my friends and family. I long for intellectual discourse and debate.
So I've decided to actually start planning ways to achieve my goals starting today. I might write a book or go back to school:)