A Bee and A Bear

My anxiety is a bee. It lives in my head, constantly buzzing. Never letting me forget it's there. Just like white noise, there are times I can turn down the volume, but never enough to ignore it completely. Sometimes this bee nests in the honeycomb that is my brain. Trying to find nectar, it pokes around triggering my nervous system. Suddenly, without warning it stings. My hands shake and it's hard to breathe, but the bee continues to sting. Over and over again until I scream. Stinger finally retracted, the swelling doesn't immediately subside; I'm left a nervous wreck. As my hands steady and my breathing begins to stabilize, I go back to pretending it's normal to live with a bee.

My depression is a bear. It cuddles up next to me in the middle of the night. Just like a grown child still attached to a security blanket, there's a comfort in it's warmth. But it becomes too warm. So warm that I almost can't breathe. And when that cuddly bear decides it's hungry, the suffocating warmth is the least of my worries. Claws out, teeth bared, the depression attacks. Sometimes I can play dead, pretending to not feel it sniff my neck and growl by my ear. When I flinch and show my weaknesses, depression comes to kill. Sometimes blood is shed, wounds reopen, and I'm left with scars deeper than the ones before. But other times I can talk it down, talk it back into a hibernating state, where I can pretend that it's normal to live with a bear.

Big News

You know when I said I needed a break from teaching in order to figure out what I wanted to do with my life? And remember when I said that I wanted experience doing an abundance of jobs that were not in the education field? 

Well, I got a job!!

"What is it?" You may find yourself asking.

Umm....well...

I'm going to be a Kindergarten teacher. 

While you all take a second to roll your eyes, hear me out.

The school I will be working for found themselves in a pickle and in need of a teacher. And because of my extensive experience in education (and my connections within the district), they hired me! It's a temporary job that will only last until the end of the school year, but I will have my very own classroom with 23 adorable little ones. 

"But Cami, didn't you say..." I'm going to stop you right there.

I expect one of two things to happen during the next few months: I rediscover my love for teaching and decide it's what I want to pursue for the rest of my life or I decide that, even in the best of situations, it isn't for me, and I go my own way after completing the school year. 

Either way, this was an opportunity that I couldn't turn down. Like Ted and his quest for love, I need to give this one last try and see what the universe has to say about it.  

Wish me luck!