Breathing Underwater

Tuesday was anything but a normal day.  I hadn't slept in days, five days to be exact.  Thursday morning I received an email that I was meeting the HR guy about my job and it would happen on Tuesday at 2pm.  For the next several days, I paced and then eventually had a breakdown and cried.  What could this be about?  Would they really let me go?  Could I be losing my job?  What will I do? Will my family be okay?  Will I make it to Tuesday?

Well, I made it Tuesday, barely, but there I was, working and doing everything I could so that I did not sit at my desk and watch the clock tick the seconds by.  The time arrives and I give myself a pep talk.  I felt like Rodney Dangerfield in Ladybugs  where he says, "My name is Chester.  I am great.  I am wonderful.  Everybody likes me."  I can do this, I can walk into this meeting and walk out okay.  Whatever it is, I will survive.  I am stronger than this and something better is going to happen.

He delivers the news, "due to budget cuts, it has been recommended that your job be eliminated at the end of the school year."  As a teacher, I have read numerous books and at that moment, I knew what Alex Flinn (author of Breathing Underwater) meant when Nick, the main character, says "Ever feel like you're breathing underwater, and you have to stop because you're gulping in too much fluid?"  I felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room and I could only swallow fluid.  It took everything in me to hold back my tears and I almost made it through the meeting without crying, but when I thought of my students, I lost it.  I was letting them down.  Who would help them?  How will they become better writers? Will they survive? Will the teachers survive? Will I survive?

I always knew how unique my position really was and when the first talk of budget cuts emerged, I knew I was on the chopping block, but I never thought that the moment my job came to an end that it would feel like an elephant had sat on my chest and I would struggle to breath, much like I was underwater. 

A few days later, I can laugh and smile, but that elephant is still on my chest.  I question my worth, my goals in life, and what will happen to my family.  I know think that the fact that this meeting happened on my half-birthday is no coincidence.  I have six months until I turn thirty and I am determined.  I am going to find who I am, maybe discover a calling and hopefully send that elephant back to the grasslands.