+ A New Year +

I always feel like the mark of the new school year is more of a New Year's Day for me. It just always feels more like a new beginning. I suppose it's something the United State's school system does on purpose. We spend how many years of our lives revolving around the education system? Of course it ends up ruling our mindsets a bit.

It doesn't help when you continue to work for the schools after you graduate, either. It just continues to rule you completely. I live on their schedule and calendar...

It's a new year.

I'm once again back to "teach". Or, rather, aide...

I'm still not good enough to teach anywhere. I'm not worthy in the eyes of the hiring staff because I am not dating employees, married to any, or cozied up to any that have real pull. I don't know how to make these connections that will suit me. Using people feels like such a lie to me... It would feel fake. I'd also hate to feel like I got a job based on none of my merits and only by those I know. That would suck so much.

Some of the new hires... that's what's gossiped about them behind their backs. You hear a lot when you're the youngest staff member and merely a lowly aide. People talk around you as if you don't matter assuming you can't hear. It's actually a lot like being a child in a room full of adults. They speak quite candidly. I use that example because I was always that fly on the wall, especially as a child. Adults (family and strangers alike) assumed I was too young to understand, but even then I was quite intelligent. Being the middle child in all family gatherings ensured I was ignored completely (my cousins either 9 years older or younger left me very much estranged). I would be left in the rooms with the adults, ignored by my peers and adults and instead I listened. I must seem very safe because there was nothing that wouldn't be said in front of me... or maybe I just blended in well. It happens at work still and I get plenty of juicy gossip... I guess people feel safe because I never repeat the things I hear. I just take it in and pretend I've heard nothing.

The fact, remains, I hear plenty. And it's usually about how so and so is undeserving of the job they got because they know so and so. To be the person spoken of like that would kill me. I already have to work hard just because I'm young, that's how it's always been. To have the pressure... I don't know. Maybe you don't care once you're in that situation because you have the job and that's all that matters. God knows, I wouldn't know because I can't get jobs that mean anything.

I can't get jobs that pay enough to survive on, or ones I really want.

And with each passing year I'm left with the unmistakable question of... do I even want this anymore?

Do people realize the more they break your heart the harder it is to bounce back? God knows this school district that brought me up has done nothing but hurt me since I graduated. I'm losing the confidence in myself that I once possessed. Maybe I was never meant to teach no matter how much I love it... or how much passion I have for the subject matter and age group. I apparently have no self respect though...because year after year I keep coming back. Though it's partly because they pay me so little I have no other options.

I don't even make enough money to save in order to move away... Maybe with this second job I've acquired I'll be able to save up to leave this place once and for all...

Isn't it sad that my New Year is filled with sadness and the need to run away into the unknown? If only I could...