Friday 20 July 2012

I made it

Well here I am at the end of term.  The school year is over and I made it.  My first year in a new year group is complete and I am still standing - just.

This year has been an enormous challenge and I am proud of myself for rising to it.  I have found this year extremely difficult, with everything being new and so much to learn both in my new curriculum and in strategies for working with older children.

I confess that there has not been a single minute of this year that I have felt on top of things and mostly I have been paddling furiously from one task to the next hoping to reach it before I went under.  I have made many many mistakes which hopefully I have learned from and next year will not make.  I have tried new strategies - some of which have been successful, some have not and some have worked some of the time but not always. I have learned lots about many topics but realise I have lots more still to learn.

I'm in the same year group again next year and I'm hoping it will be easier as at least I'll know where to begin and have some knowledge of what and how I should be teaching. 

I am completely exhausted.

But I made it!

Thursday 19 July 2012

Mixed feelings

Yesterday I learned that The Photographer and his partner are expecting a baby in October. I am so pleased for them and wish them every happiness. I am certain he will be a fabulous father.

I congratulate them and I wish the very best for them.  I am pleased he has moved on and that things are going well for him both in his personal and professional life. I truly hope he has found everything he was looking for. I wish I could congratulate him in person and let him know I wish them well.

Perhaps I will now lose some of the guilt and worry I have carried for such a long time over the breakdown of our relationship.  I have a terrible, overwhelming need to "put things right", to apologise and know I have been forgiven.  Don't get me wrong - neither of us did anything awful to each other.  No one cheated or lied. It stopped working for lots of little reasons that added up to big ones but it ended in a very awkward and uncomfortable way and I know I caused a lot of hurt, as did he. 

In my job I expect my class to apologise sincerely when they have hurt or upset someone.  I ask the hurt party to forgive and expect that they will.  I ask this because it is the right thing to do and it allows everyone to feel better and move on. Holding a grudge never helps anyone.  The one who has hurt needs this process as much as the one who was hurt.  I need it too.  I apologised.  He was, at that time, too hurt to accept or forgive (which I fully understood) and has not spoken to me since.  I have been erased from his life very deliberately - I was told he would do this for "a clean break".  So the circle of apology, forgiveness and moving on for me has never quite been completed.  I needed to know he was ok.  I needed to know he was no longer hurting.  I needed my apology to be accepted.

It seems now he is ok and is no longer hurting and that I will never know if my apology was accepted or if I have been forgiven.  I am pleased for him but I also feel a huge emptiness.  Parting ways was the right thing to do and I do not regret it, only the way in which it happened. 

I feel now,  more than ever, that my life has not moved on. I am in exactly the same place I was when we parted.  I feel stuck and, if I am very honest, more than a little jealous. I want a family too.  I am genuinely happy for him, but feel sad and empty all at the same time and I really don't know how I should react to that.