Time to Say Good-bye

Here I am--it's my due date, the little baby counter widget says "0 days to go". And I'm wondering if this kid is planning on coming out. I've had contractions here and there over the past week or so, and at my doctor's appointment Wednesday, I was almost dilated to a three and effaced 70%. I'm moving in the right direction, hypothetically. I know, I know...patience. You would think after hundreds of life lessons on patience, I would be a more patient person. Nope. I'm a slow learner. I'm just so excited to meet this little guy and to know that I can do this whole labor & delivery thing and to know that everything is okay. Every hiccup, every gas bubble, every ache, and I'm wondering is this it? Am I going into labor? It's true, I'm the girl whose cakes never bake right because I'm always opening the oven door to see if the cake is done yet, so it ends up burned around the edges and raw in the middle. I wish I had some sort of timer on my belly that would just start dinging when the baby is ready to come out. Maybe tonight. Here's hoping!
So, today has been a bittersweet day. Today was my last official day as a teacher. I've been a middle school teacher, at the same school, for eight years now, plus I did my student-teaching at the same school. I love being a teacher, and I realize that I've spent more of my awake-time hours at school than anywhere else. And the bad thing is, I'm still thinking and talking about school when I come home. So pretty much 90% of my time has been dedicated to teaching. And now I am here, ready to begin a new chapter in my life. I am so excited to be a stay-at-home mom. As I told Hubs today, after today I'm an official stay-at-home mommy, and I love how that sounds coming out of my mouth. My dreams are really coming true! I know that this new chapter will be full of so many adventures, ups and downs, and wonderful moments and memories. But it's always hard for me to close the book on other chapters. As a child, my two favorite 'pretend' games were pretending to be a mommy and pretending to be a teacher. The stray cats in my neighborhood received the finest education you can get and would probably be Harvard graduates, if Harvard accepted felines. Teaching and being a mommy have always been my two big, must-have dreams. And I wish I could do them both right now, but I know in my heart, that I, personally, can't give 100% to being a teacher and 100% to being a mother. I don't have it in me. I'm the teacher who doesn't go home until 5:30 at night, and even then I leave feeling like there is so much more I need to do if only I had more time. And I want to be an awesome mom. I want to show my children the world and give them the world. I want to be that hands-on mom that other kids describe as "a little weird but cool." Maybe one day, when the kids are older, I'll come back to teaching. But as Robert Frost says so eloquently, "And yet knowing how way leads on to way/I doubted I should ever come back." Who knows where my road may lead. Maybe I'll finally become that professional writer. Maybe I'll go back to school and get a degree in social work and become a counselor. Maybe I'll become a professor at some local university. Who knows? Way leads on to way...
Last night I tried really hard to go into labor. I ran up and down the stairs. I ate spicy tamales. I gave Turkey pep talks. I really wanted to avoid having to do the last day thing. I'm terrible at good-byes, and I really wasn't sure I could do it. I am an emotional person as is. Add pregnancy hormones and it just gets messy! But this morning I woke up still pregnant, so I got out of bed and got ready for school for the last time. I wanted to make myself look beautiful, so that my students' last image of me could be of beauty, but the fact is I am 9 months pregnant. I look how I look and there's no energy to do much about it. =) I have to say that I did fairly well most of the day. There were a few tears here and there as I said good-bye to students and colleagues but not the torrential downpour I was fearing. The kids were really cute. Most of them thought I was crazy for being at school on my due date and were just afraid I would go into labor any minute. They wrote cute messages on my board, made me cards, and slipped me notes through out the day. There were a couple of kids who surprised me. One boy, kind of a class clown, waited until the rest of the class had left then gave me a big hug and said, "Thanks, Mrs. J for everything!" It all meant a lot to me. The whole day was really surreal to me though. I think I held it together by not believing it was really my last day.
After school was a different story. It started to sink in more and more as my colleagues and friends came to say good-bye. I entered in the last grade, erased my boards, cleared off my desk and made sure all was ready for the substitute, wrote a small message to my students on the board, and sent off a couple of last e-mails. Then it was time to shut down my computer. I kept looking at door and wondering if I was going to have the emotional strength to stand up and walk out that door. I didn't realize how hard it would be to let go of all of this. As I described it to a friend, it's like getting my right arm amputated. Suddenly I realize how much I used my right arm and how much I liked my right arm. And I feel all lopsided and awkward without it. And there's this empty spot where my right arm should be. I probably sat at my desk and just cried for over half an hour. Then I got up, collected my stuff, and walked out that door. Now I know that I'll need to go back to the school--at least to collect the rest of my stuff. And I'm hoping to keep in touch with people (many of my best friends are at that school), but the next time I go back (even if I go back next week), it's as a regular person, not a teacher. I'm out of that circle now. It's kind of like coming home from my mission. I've been back to visit Italy, but now I go as a tourist. I'm not eating, breathing, being Italy. I'm just a tourist. Now I'm a teacher tourist. Oh well. So goes life. As a quote I really like says, "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out and proclaiming, 'WOW, WHAT A RIDE!!!'" Teaching has had its ups and downs, its thrills and disappointments, its bumps and bruises, but "Wow! What a ride!" What a ride!