Beyond Burnout

As I reflect on this past year and look forward to the new year, I can't help but feel a little lost. I am like many of you. I am exhausted. I am burnt out. I am burning the candle at both ends for too long and there isn't much left of me.

I only recently learned what actual self care is. In fact, it was within this last year that I learned what it means to practice self-care. But self-care is not enough. It would be naive of me to believe that as long as I practiced self-care enough, I would recover from my burnout. Burnout has many symptoms, and every time I am told that what I experience is burnout, I feel helpless.

I can easily identify the main source of my burnout. I am a teacher. The moment we went virtual back in 2020, I started experiencing burnout symptoms. I just told myself to hold on and wait until this whole pandemic thing blows over, then everything will be okay. It felt like I was clawing my way through. I ignored my own trauma of watching the world around me collapse under the pressure of COVID-19, and I kept going. I silently suffered with grief over losing a student to gun violence. He was ten. I suffered alone. Because what else could I do?

2020 came and went. 2021 was looking up. Vaccines were on the way, and I was going to get to go back to normal. But I was wrong. The 2021-2022 school year began. I immediately was slammed with the wake-up call that no way in hell was this school year going to be like it was in years past.

Three weeks into the school year I had a fight in my classroom, my first one ever. A week after that, there was a stabbing during lunch time that put two kids in the hospital. A few weeks after that? I lost another student to gun violence. Then before I could even catch my breath from the grief, there was a shooting during school hours at the park students hang out at during their off period. Six kids are put in the hospital. One of them is mine and they aren't able to walk. Within the same week, a school I used to teach at, twelve minutes from my current school, two more students are shot and put in the hospital.

So, I really have no idea what 2022 will bring. I have been thinking about my New Year's resolution and what I could possibly focus on for myself with everything that goes on around me. How can I get better when it seems so out of reach? Why does it feel like I have taken one step forward, two steps back? How do I grieve the loss of my students? The loss of my love for teaching? The loss of my life pre-pandemic?

I am beyond burnt out. I don't even know what to call this. I don't know if I feel anything some days. Sometimes I go through the motions on the daily without experiencing life.

2022. What can I do in 2022? What can I do for me?

I have started to kick ideas around. Quit teaching? Right now, that is out of the question. Despite the burnout, I love my job and I love my kids. So what else can I do?

I want to experience life again. I want to experience my new life. I need to grieve the loss of my old one so that I can move on. My new life isn't bad, it's just different. I will rest, and I will lay my old life down to rest as well. My old life will rest forever, stored in my memories where they belong. I will rest because I will no long fight for what was.