Thursday, Apr. 29, 2010 7:38 p.m.

Testing PD/over

My job is funny. Because we all work from home, we know each other's names from exchanged emails, but we have no clue who each other are. Teams of us met once at the beginning of the year, and I think team pics were sent out, but other than that, I've got no faces to put with names.

Until today. Today we had the annual in-person state testing meeting. So weird. Name tags were crucial. Familiar names on unfamiliar people. It was interesting how the 150 or so people at our regional meeting all looked and seemed similar too. 4 men, the rest female. The majority were the teacher type too - you know, the simple, conservative, professional, motherly look that teachers seem to have. Everyone appears to be late 20s-early 40s and as though they have young kids at home. Actually, the LARGE majority of them do have young kids at home. Several women there were visibly pregnant. One was there with their baby. Afterall, I HAVE succeeded in getting myself the ultimate work-from-home-and-stay-home-with-your-kids job. Seriously, this is the ultimate job for that position.

Sometimes feel like I have to hide the fact that I don't have kids yet. Like they'll take the job away from me and give it to a new mother who needs it. I know that's stupid to think, but I sometimes still do. I don't want to not deserve this job just because I don't have a child. I really want a child to stay home with - can that desire be enough?

It was cool though to be social. I miss that so very much. Just being around people and talking to them and feeling that I am someone.

I met another first-year teacher at the school. I'm going to be proctoring at her testing site in 2 weeks. She was about my age. She was nice. I found out that she lives 2 BLOCKS from where we are moving. I was kind of super secretly excited - maybe I could meet a friend. Then she mentioned she was moving soon, because she just found out she was pregnant.

I told her congrats. She said thanks. Then we continued sorting tests and talking business. But I really wanted to ask her questions: How far along was she? (She wasn't showing.) Had she been trying or was it an accident? Did she know what it's like to want but not be able to also? Was she appreciative of her ability to be pregnant, or did it come too easily to her so that she mostly complains about its inconveniences? What was it like for her? Was she willing to be friends with someone she couldn't eventually do play-groups with?

It was silly to get excited about the possibility of making a friend. Pregnant wouldn't have been too bad, especially if - who knows - maybe she understood the pain of trying, but moving because of it? When I was about to move only 2 blocks away?

Blah. Silly, silly thoughts. I shouldn't have thought them.

Or maybe I should just have more friends so that I don't stupidly get excited just to meet someone who shares my profession who lives within walking distance.
----------

Oh, and in a follow-up from yesterday's entry: yeah, it's official now. But I don't really believe it. So I'm not really sad.

But it's definitely not happy news. It's just another thing to add on. I'm mostly flattened already, so pretty much anything will balance on top now. Pile it on and see what I can take. (I describe things strange. Oh well.) So yeah. Whatever.

previous | next