I bought back my childhood home in 2016 with the hope and intention of living in it full time. After my youngest daughter graduated, I quite my teaching job, sold my house in Northern California (my former rental home when married) and moved back to my mountaintop community in the fall of 2021—only two hours away from my eldest and formerly estranged daughter. It is now February 2023.
Since I arrived I applied for a job as a helper at a domestic violence center. I was over qualified for the minimum wage job and I discovered through the process of applying that I am still too sensitive from my own lived experience to help others who are traumatized. So, not getting the job was probably a blessing.
I then applied for a waitressing job at a high end restaurant. I thought it would be fun, great tips and after managing classrooms full of students, how hard could it be? Well, I don’t think my resume made it past the host. I had had no restaurant experience.
A few months later, I decided to try out teaching once again. When I first began looking, there was nothing local. Search after search, nada. Having almost entirely given up looking, I noticed a Spanish opening at my high school alma mater. Everything seemed to have lined up just right. This job was meant for me! I was sure of it.
I went to the interview and landed the job three hours later. However, during the interview I discovered that the job wasn’t exactly the job description that was posted—high school Spanish. Instead, I was to become an English Language Coordinator for all the non-native English speaking students at both the high school and continuation high school. In other words, I was to be in charge of assessing and keeping tabs on well over 100 students to remain in compliance with district and state regulations. I had not one ounce of experience in that arena other than a sincere determination to try. Additionally, I was to teach two classes of English to students who had zero English fluency all the way up to students who were born and raised here and spoke as fluently as myself. However, they hadn’t passed a state mandated test. To be honest, I’m not so sure (after having administered those tests) that our native English speaking population of students would be able to pass those tests either.
Oh! As for the job I was applying for, Spanish, I was to teach three beginning Spanish classes. Easy enough I had done that before. However, I discovered there would also be a handful of native Spanish speakers within each of those classes, students who were well beyond basic levels of Spanish competency. As a result, I had students who were bored out of their minds because Spanish was already spoken at home, yet they were learning how to say “hello” and “how are you.” Therefore, I tried to differentiate and create curriculum to match those students’ needs as well. Wow!
During the interview I got quiet when what I was actually applying for was described to me. I soo wanted this job to work out and as always I tried to see the positive. I dreamt up all the connections I would make with the “non-English speaking” students having been raised by immigrant parents myself. I told myself that I would finally get to teach Spanish by ditching the outdated curriculum and methods used for teaching a second language by using current strategies I had completed trainings to do. I also told myself, I would have the time to focus on becoming an excellent coordinator because both my daughters were in college.
Dreaming and hoping are my super powers as well as my own self-destruction tools. Since the two weeks before school started, I worked 6-7 days a week for 10-12 hours most days. To boot I had insomnia and averaged 4-6 hours of sleep per night. As I finished out the second month overworked, under rested and burning out, I began to take a long hard look at what any human was capable of doing to successfully run these three positions. I finally faced the fact that the last three people had quit this position; there was a reason they did. I also noted that when I asked for help, there was little anyone was able to do (except my blessed para-educators who arrived a month later into the school year to help).
As a recovering perfectionist, I knew I had to let go. I would have to accept lower standards on my part in order to sleep and survive. After the third month in I knew I had to quit either at the semester or end of the year. With the encouragement of my best friend and a long weekend in contemplation, I resigned that following Monday. I couldn’t wait. I had given 100% and did my best, but there was simply not enough of me to serve either of the positions well enough to continue. I had never felt more scared and more at peace with a decision in my life with the exception of deciding to divorce. To this day, three months later, I still shudder and wake up with my heart racing from simply reflecting on that experience.
My dream for myself since buying this home six years ago has been to run a business related to tourism and/or being in the outdoors—in nature. Beginning this past November after my resignation, I spent time healing from expending all the energy I had to make that job work for me. I also had to face the realization that I didn’t have a back up plan and my savings were beginning to dwindle.
Needless to say I started up in therapy once again and began the process of taking care of myself: sleep, exercise, water intake and healthy nutrition. By December I was beginning to get a rhythm again, relax a little and find the space mentally to plan my next moves financially. The month of December and most of January was researching the possibility of starting a tourism company in Cuba and live there part-time with my business partner and Cuban best friend, Maria. Unfortunately, tourism is almost non-existent and the paperwork and licensing is difficult and therefore would take too long to generate income.
Before I moved from NorCal I knew that I needed a career change. Teaching the way I once knew it and loved it was changing. With each year I noticed greater academic learning ranges within the classroom (from 2nd grade reading and math skills up to 8th grade in a 5th grade classroom) while managing students with extreme emotional disabilities (self-harming or harming others repeatedly) not to mention testing pressures and mandated adherence to pacing and district chosen curriculum.
During my last couple of years teaching (especially after teaching on a computer screen for four hours each day during the Covid crisis), I started making jokes that I would rather clean houses, paint walls, or rake pine needles for a living. I wanted less stress not more in my life. I didn’t realize until I chose to quit that those jokes were not jokes. Those comments were my truths that I didn’t want to face.
It is now the end of February and I have finished nearly everything required to launch my own cleaning and cooking business. Maria has decided to make a living with me here instead of returning to Cuba, at least for now until the economy picks up. She will be introducing Cuban cuisine to this mountain village doing what she does best, cooking, and together we will help the locals and cabin owners by providing cleaning services which are much in demand.
While I sit at my dining room table wondering if this will all pan out, I look out over the white blanket of snow that has covered nearly every surface outside and feel peace. Since I moved away 30 years ago, I dreamt of living in the snow once again, getting a season pass and go skiing regularly and hike daily in the national forest only three blocks from my home. Perhaps most of all I’ve wanted to build a community within my neighborhood. Although this has been a slow process that is exactly what I have been doing since I returned 1 1/2 years ago.
I just stepped outside to take a video of the snow to share with my daughters and found my neighbor dressed in snow gear (hardly recognizable) plowing my driveway with a blower. I am blessed. I love where I live. I love the life I am building even though I don’t have all the answers yet. I don’t know where this business venture will take me, but I’m trying. I’m trying something new. I’m trying while being scared. I’m trying to create a life with less stress and to enjoy the people and nature I’m surrounded by. So what’s next? I really don’t know, but I’m going to keep showing up!
PS The business = Great Dames Cleaning Plus Cooking based on the breed of my beloved Great Dane Jiji, another blessing in my life.