Originally a major part of blogging was people sharing about themselves and their inner processes. I have been known to do that. Even when I write on topics in the news it is not unusual for me to share how I react to or connect with the material about which I post.
This diary may be somewhat different, because of where I find myself.
What you will read below the fold is the result of some serious reflection that began more than a month ago. But it is very much the result of finding myself deeply depressed last night, and seeking to understand why.
If this kind of self-reflection is of no value or interest to you, please leave this diary now. My feelings will not be hurt if this simply scrolls into oblivion, but on the oft chance that what I post may be either of value or interest to others, I would appreciate it if you find it necessary to bash me if you do so via direct message, and not hijack the thread.
Thank you in advance.
I turn 66 in late May. At that point I am eligible for full Social Security and can also work full time with no penalty to my Social Security benefits. Knowing that, I began in late September and early October to seriously consider my future. I wanted to explore what options I might have with how I use whatever productive time I might still have.
As I began the process, I realized that while I still have far more energy than many my age, that most people do not take me for as old as I am, that I still enjoyed teaching young people and was still effective, my energy level was down compared to a few years ago. I began to wonder if I were as effective a teacher as I should be.
Last year our school system offered $20,000 to senior teachers who retired. I ran the numbers and it made no sense. They may make a similar offer this year, but I did not take that into account when I began my exploration.
I noted that after a bit over a month I had a somewhat unusual situation this year - I had no bad kids. Most years I at least have a few real behavioral problems. One year I had a class that of the 25 kids still in it at the end of the year about 17 had been suspended at some point during the year. This year, 1/4 done, has seen four kids (out of over 170) confined to in school study center and 2 suspended, one for three days and one for a week, neither for anything in my class. There are some who are lazy, more who give up on themselves too easily, but by and large these are nice kids. I began to wonder if that were any kind of indication to me - far better to go out on a positive note, eh?
I began reaching out to people I trust, informing them that i was considering leaving the classroom at the end of the year and perhaps doing something else. I could also stay and simply take the Social Security benefits as a large raise. Or I could retire from teaching in Maryland and get Social Security and Maryland pension and teach either in DC or Virginia were I to reinstate my certificates there. I mentioned some other possibilities I might consider, and began a dialog with people who know me and whose judgment I trust.
Along the way I encountered an interesting doctoral program that would not require me to pay tuition and would also offer a stipend. It is at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and would require me to live apart from wife (who has a career she enjoys here in DC area) and cats, not seeing them for perhaps several weeks at a time. You can read about the particular program here. My wife told me I should explore it. I touched base with several people whose judgment I trust, two of whom are associated with an organization that partners with the program. They told me they thought I should apply. A person whose judgment I greatly trust told me that if I did not fully explore the possibility I would probably always wonder and regret, but that I should be prepared to find as I did explore that my attitude towards it might change.
Some people pointed out how strongly my passion is fed by continuing to be in the classroom. These words were meant not merely about my involvement with educational policy, but also my passions for things like economic equity, the environment, etc. Having no biological children of my own, I tend to view things attempting to understand their impact upon the young people who are part of my life, my students most of all, but also nieces and nephews and the children of friends.
I decided to apply. I do not expect to get in, as there are hundreds upon hundreds of applications for only 25 slots. I will be surprised if I am even one of the 50+ finalists who gets invited to Cambridge MA for an interview. I would upon admission be almost 20 years older than anyone in the first two cohorts of this new program, although I have been assured that my advanced age would not by itself be a barrier.
Meanwhile I have begun to reinstate at least my DC certificate, and will see if I can also restore my Virginia certificate. One friend in a major position in government is willing to try to create a job for me, but it would not be as involved in education. An acquaintance at a non-profit thinks s/he can create a position that would provide enough money so that with social security and pension I would not have to lower my life style, and this would be for an organization involved with education.
As I explored, I decided to begin drawing Social Security as of January 1. That will lower my benefits by about 2.2%, but will give me enough additional money beyond what I would have had if I waited for full benefits that it would take almost 5 years before the money up front were offset by lower benefits, and that seems to make sense because having the money now gives me more flexibility.
Perhaps my thinking was also affected by having to undergo hernia surgery towards the end of October. I have a high tolerance for pain, and recovery from traumas of any kind fairly quickly, but this one hit me pretty hard. I had expected to leave the hospital after outpatient surgery at 1 PM on the Friday of the surgery, but was not up to traveling the two blocks home by car until 3 PM. I had expected to return to school on Monday, but stayed out until Wednesday. During that time I found myself reflecting even more.
The last piece of prefatory material is the application. There is a lot of writing I have to do for the application for Harvard. I had done the easy parts of beginning the application. Beginning Thursday evening I began doing more, including spending 3 hours Friday night working on it. That, too, had an effect on me.
Yesterday I took some time to watch our girls soccer team play in the state semi-finals. It was their first time in four years, and they were not really competitive, even though they only lost 1-0 - they had no shots on goal, and the other team had 8 or 9. I teach two of the team members now, and have taught several others. I know they will be devastated by their performance.
I returned home in mid-afternoon to find the diary I written about a column by Charles Blow was still on the recommended list.
And then it hit me.
I found myself getting deeply depressed.
For several hours I knew I could not think clearly, and did not try.
About the only thing that eased it was soaking in a hot salt bath, or perhaps letting one or more of the cats crawl up on or next to me and go to sleep purring.
It remained like that throughout the evening. I woke several times during the night and still felt depressed. I even considered taking another salt bath.
This morning I am somewhat out of it, but still somewhat down. Yet I am able to think with a fair amount of clarity.
I find that I can best sort out the pieces of my thinking by writing. I have been like that at least since my late adolescence. Long before there was blogging, I used to write in notebooks. I was rarely without one, and that process perhaps kept me from totally sinking into a dark place and not coming back.
That used to be a very real possibility. Without burdening you with the details, I have had more than one serious episode of deep depression, including episodes that probably qualify as breakdowns.
I am not on medication for it. I have been in the past. What I experienced yesterday was my first really dark moment in well over a year, and I have come back up fairly quickly. I am not concerned about slipping into deep depression for an extended period of time.
But I did want to understand why I felt as I did. I understand only in part, and it is that part I will share.
I cannot do all I feel called to do. That is not unusual.
But I find myself conflicted, to the point that any choice I make is going to represent some kind of loss to me. I had not been considering that in the first month or so of my exploration.
This past week or so I have not been writing as much. I was focusing on my students and my application to Harvard. I had also picked up some additional responsibility at school. My life is often so full that to add something requires something to be dropped. At first i think I wondered if I were out of things to say, if that was why I was not blogging, or even commenting.
I realized that I still had reactions and observations, but they did not seem to be of sufficient importance to take time from other things, including sometimes just being there and letting a cat curl up, as our newest is next to me as I write this.
I then began to reflect, and have some observations if not conclusions. These reflect what I have learned so far both from the overall exploration and the experience of depression last night.
I cannot both continue in the classroom and seek to have a major impact upon educational policy. It is unfortunate, but both tasks would require too much and to attempt to do both means I give both short shrift. IF I continue in the classroom, I will have to accept that the role I play, the voice I offer outside the classroom will become ever more limited and diminishing.
I cannot take on all that I see before me. There will be things about which I care for which all I can do is to hope that others can carry the battles that need to be fought. Oh, I may still write on such topics, but now I know that it will be as one who cannot fully engage in that issue.
I am beginning to feel my age. It was not just the surgery, although that forcefully brought it home. I still have, as noted above, more energy than some a decade younger than me, but that could change at any moment. I cannot run myself ragged.
I need quiet moments. I have always enjoyed periods of solitude. Perhaps that is why I have been drawn to monastic communities, and twice seriously considered joining, first at St. Gregory's, an Episcopalian Benedictine community with whom I stayed during the summer of the 1974, and then at Simona Petra, one of the ruling monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece, which I first visited in 1981 and which I considered joining several years later.
As I begin to create space for quiet, and for silence, I will find that I will need and appreciate music that much more. Silence is for me an essential part of music.
If you have seen Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption, it is only when he realistically no longer cares if he gets parole that he is transformed enough that he can handle parole, and thus finally gets it. In a sense that is part of the understanding I have reached, even if the understanding itself is still only partial, fragmentary.
It is only that I am willing to accept that i cannot be fully the teacher that I wish I were that enables me to continue to grow in the role and responsibility of teacher.
In understanding that, only then is it possible for me to accept that I may have to leave teaching in order to fully serve teaching. Trust me, this is very relevant for my application to Harvard.
It is in teaching that I learn, for to teach requires one to listen, to watch, to reflect.
I am again becoming a student, a learner. Now it is of things that perhaps I should already have learned, but that does not matter. I am still breathing, I still have opportunity.
Cielito, our newest cat, has been with us for several years. He is now 7. He lies next te me while giving himself a vigorous bath. Then he stretches out along my leg, and curls up again, dropping into sleep.
The clock chimes - 12 minutes late for the half hour, reminding me it would like to be rewound and reset. A clock has its purpose, and thus also has its presence.
I write because it gives me life outside of myself and my mind. It connects me with a larger humanity.
So does listening to music, or reading the words of others.
Depression can cripple one. But it can also, if we let it, be a great teacher.
Yesterday I was depressed.
Yesterday I was given an opportunity to learn.
That learning is still incomplete.
As I finish these words, I am no longer depressed.
I am somewhat saddened at some of what I am realizing. Loss can easily lead to sadness.
Or perhaps it is a letting go that rather than a loss is a liberation. A recognition that it is okay to let go of some things, not feeling guilt or necessity of hanging on.
Today is my wife's day. We will go to a reception and luncheon that connects with a major part of her life. Later we will go to a concert she wants to share with me.
Tomorrow I will return to school, to my students, to part of my life, a major part. It will be familiar, but it will also be different, or if you prefer, a somewhat new experience, because of yesterday and the days that led up to yesterday, and the realizations today that were only possible because of yesterday.
I have no brilliant insights.
I have my life.
I have the richness of the lives of those whose paths intersect with mine, in person, or through what we read and learn as we live.
Now Cielito decides it is time to go explore the house. Since I will not disturb him, now I am also free to get on with this day.
Thanks for being willing to read what i have written.
Peace.