Losing my mind...

I may have completely lost my mind. I freaked out and quit my job last week. I had a nervous breakdown--I had a horrible meeting with my principal, and while everyone was down at dismissal, I packed up my stuff and left. I spent the next three days in bed, crying.

I feel really weird about it now. On the one hand, I feel extremely guilty. There's something about teaching (um, the fact that you work with children, perhaps?) that makes it different from any other job. With a normal job, I would have quit a looooooong looooooooooooooong time ago. But there's a different pressure with teaching, and I guess that's for good reason. I think it also attracts a certain breed of masochist, so there's this sense of have-to-stick-it-out-no-matter-whatness because we're all such martyrs already... Well, I'm not a martyr anymore. I'm now a crazy, dramatic, selfish b@tch.

It felt sort of like running into a wall. I have never felt so depressed or overwhelmed or completely broken by anything before. I just couldn't face it anymore. I couldn't even leave my bedroom. It was a scary, out of control feeling. But it's mostly passed now. I'm really stressed about the money thing, but otherwise, I feel good about the next few months. I'm going to go to school full time and finally--FINALLY--finish. But now I'm not even sure I want to be a teacher anymore... I need to remember what it was like working at a supportive, caring school. I can do that again. At least I can do that for a few years, and then hopefully get a job in textbook publishing.

I have so much regret now about leaving my old job. I keep thinking how, in spite of everything I complained about, I sincerely liked my coworkers there, and I felt so supported. I guess I knew going into this that it was a risk, and with every risk there is the possibility of utter failure. I liked to think that I could do anything for a year, no matter how bad... But I think I redefined utter failure with this one. Epic, monumental, colossal, and catastrophic are all apt.

I'm on my way home now, and I'm really looking forward to disassociating from Brooklyn for the next 10 days. I want to refocus on my life. I feel really lost, and I don't like the feeling. I'm excited to reconnect with friends, hang out with my mom's pets, eat and cook a lot, watch some movies, read some books, and generally just chill out. No school to think about, no 4 billion work things to stress over... That's such an amazing feeling! I know once the initial feelings of guilt and failure subside, this will be the right choice. I just need to get to that place.