What next?

When I graduated from college, I had three jobs. On the weekends I was learning to tattoo at a shop on East Colfax in Denver. During the week, I was working nights at a yuppie-slumming biker bar in North Denver and working days at a day care center. I remember wearing jeans and t-shirts to the day care center and playing with five year olds all day and then changing into slinky tank tops and putting on eyeliner at stoplights to get ready to deliver long necks during happy hour. I ate nasty goldfish crackers and the fruit from the drink garnish bins. I’d go to my mostly empty apartment and take a notebook out onto my deck and write about the crazy, funny things I was thinking, then sleep for about four or five hours and get up and do it all again.

My parents came up to see me during that crazy time and brought me a computer. That was back before EVERYONE had a computer. Mom said it was for my great American novel. Dad said it was for law school. Just for the record, I never wanted to go to law school. That was their way of saying, “Why are you working in a bar and babysitting with a degree from CU?” They didn’t know about the tattooing. I bring this up to illustrate that NOT knowing what I wanted to do in my career has been a life long problem. Everyone but me always had ideas about what I SHOULD be doing and I was always afraid to do what I WANTED to do.

But I have to say I was pretty happy during those months. I still remember the kids at the day care center and I wonder how they grew up and what kind of lives they have now. Working with them didn’t have any pressure…no high stakes testing or watching bar graphs in harsh shades of red to show how they are failing as students and how the adults are failing in their teaching. I remember doing fun things like tye-dying and running with them in sprinklers at the park, and watching Beauty and the Beast on a rainy afternoon. The bar was equally satisfying. I had plenty of adult conversation and laughter and good music. I met two women that became life-long friends and I started learning about the loneliness that brings people to an addiction, giving me a sense of compassion for those down on their luck. But there was always the sense that I wasn’t living up to my potential. I wasn’t doing ENOUGH.

I have been thinking about the ENOUGH thing. How was that born? And how do I transcend it? It’s been a life long theme. It’s one of the reasons I left teaching art. I felt like I should be doing MORE. I was wrong about that. My work in the art room was more powerful than I ever knew.

When I was thirty, interviewing for a job meant a new outfit, answering questions with conviction and confidence. I really believed all the shit that poured out of my mouth. Now at fifty-four, interviewing for a job is both tiresome and terrifying. I will still dress up, but I am not wasting my money on new clothes. I have lost confidence about what I say because I have seen too many broken children to believe in ideals anymore. The right answers feel like lies.

I found out this week that I might be teaching kindergarten next year. My first thought when I heard that was-do you know me at all? I told my son and he said, “Well, you did teach Darian and me to read and do math before we got to school. And you like reading stories and love the alphabet. If you suck at it, you’re only ruining fourteen or fifteen kids for life.” Thank you, Shayne.

My dreams this week have been about living in houses without walls, and my dad hammering up framework, and sitting up against tour buses with Stevie Nicks. I don’t know what ANY of that means. I do that ENOUGH is more about how I feel inside than about my job. I do know that this road of a life in education has reached some sort of crossroad. I am not sure if it’s the getting off point, or a better path ahead. I do know whatever comes next NEEDS stories, art, music, love, and laughter. And it is time to do what I want. I just wish I knew what that was.

In the meantime, it’s the weekend. I am going to get out my bike and see where THAT road takes me. The answers are there somewhere.