April 2020

Waves of anxiety and panic have pursued me for the better part of a month- at times receding into a time and space that might be the purest peace and comfort that anyone can ever had, but always quickly snatched away into cold terror, waking up gasping in the middle of the night, restlessly wandering.

I know I am not alone- but that's almost adding to my own feeling of drowning. Over 40,000 Americans dead. Over 26 million unemployment claims. Borders closed. Journalists expelled from China. Empty grocery shelves. Negative oil prices. 

Without going into the specifics, I need a job. I want to continue working in education, but ideally, I want to move outside of the classroom. It does not look like that is possible. Many school districts are not staffing the phones, and have essentially frozen their hiring process.

I want to continue to make positive steps- carefully hopeful, but also recognizing that 1) this is a terribly rough time, 2) it's not my fault (the employment/the virus), 3) extreme times call for flexibility. I don't know what the future will hold, but I can only manage the hour by hour, minute by minute and remember- this is a wave that will pass too.