Full Disclosure

Keeping a blog presents some interesting internal dialog for me. On the one hand, I am an honest person that rarely keeps truths hidden or sugar coats for the benefit of others, therefore my writing should be the same. On the other hand, who knows who will read what I write and when I may just accidentally shoot myself in the foot. So, do I censor my thoughts and feelings for the benefit of protecting myself in the case of a potential reader? Or, do I go, full frontal, and bare it all? I'm not sure that there is an answer that fits all situations. Maybe a little bit of sugar coating, a dash of omitting, and a large helping of brutal honestly is where the magic medium is. Or, I could be very, very wrong.

In any case, tonight I need to vent a little. I am exhausted. My body hurts, my throat is aching, and my emotions are all broken up. For the last 3 days I have left for work before 9 AM and returned home after 9 PM. There were breaks in there and I only worked between 8-9 hours each day (mostly teaching, a few meetings) but, to my kids, I have been gone forever. Tonight as I prepared for a class I held Lillian in my lap as she cried, complaining that she "hates how things are right now". She does not like not seeing me or her father, she does not like to be left alone at home, or alone with Jaxon. All she wanted at that moment was some time with me and Jason. Of course, my class started in 3 minutes. What was I to do? I had a lobby of children and parents waiting for their lesson and Miss Lily battling for my time. The only thing that I wanted to do was take care of my girl. It took most of my energy to fight back the tears and go teach. I am not sure that the decision to do so was correct - business wise it was but as a Mom I feel awful right now. I am not meeting the needs of my family. To have my baby sit there and tell me she needs me, and me not be able to be there for her was truly heart breaking and disheartening.

Here's the rub - I like my boss. He's a good guy. I want to help him by being the best teacher I can be and making his students love coming to class. I want to see him be successful, thereby making me successful. I committed to come here and teach. I also committed to be there for my family. How do I do both? My boss is trying to accomodate me when he can, he plans to take me out of night classes so that I can be there for the kids, we are just waiting for more teachers. How do I tell the kids that it is just for now? That in 1 or 2 months it will be better? To both them and me it feels like a lifetime.

So, here I am. Exposing the truth. I feel like a terrible mother right now. I feel like a bad employee right now too. I am not the first person to feel stretched too thin and I am certainly not the last. I guess my big question is - how do I make the right choices for everyone so that in the end we are all where we need to be?

Comments

  1. KathleenLApril 27, 2012 at 7:58 PM

    Hey Tawnya, I hope you've come to some sort of internal resolution by now. I know this is something I've struggled with intermittently too. I try to tell myself three things: (1) make the best decisions possible and follow through (kids may not acknowledge it but I think they ultimately respect you living your life by your words), (2) you can't *make* any one else happy but yourself (not even your kids, and if it wasn't this issue, it most likely would be another heart-wrenching complaint), and (3) forgive yourself for not being able to do the impossible. My two-cents --Kate

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