Feelings Don't Pay the Bills

“We always imagine that a different future would have been better. But there’s a 50-50 chance it would have been worse.”

It’s been a very strange few weeks. I just haven’t been getting many shifts subbing, even though I’ve been on call almost every day.

Here’s my day when I’m on call:

Up at 5 am.

Have to be ready at 6 am.

Wait for a text from the agency telling me where I’m supposed to go.

If I get a shift, I usually leave at 7 or 7:15, but sometimes I’m sitting there till almost eight before I know.

Most of the time, I can walk to school. Sometimes I have to take a Lyft because one of my schools is far away, there is no parking, and the transit trip is forty minutes to an hour long… if the busses are running on time. I take transit home from that one - on Thursday it took me an hour and forty minutes to get home.

Usually the text telling me where to go comes between 6:30 and 7, but the last two weeks I’ve had four days when I was on call and they had no assignment for me. So I sit and wait, and get more and more anxious. It’s bad enough to not know where I’m going every morning, but for months I was consistently getting work whenever I signed up. I’m frequently requested and the school administrators often tell me I’m their favorite, so I have no idea what’s going on.

It’s hard, on days when I’m ready to put on my teacher face and be “on” all day, to have a day that is not at school. I have other things to do, but I get lonely, and I get scared. Between the three days that we missed for snow days and four days of not getting a shift, that’s a lot of income missing.

I said a few entries ago that it’s important not to get your whole self-worth from what you do for work. But I do find that I get quite a bit of it from work. I love feeling like I make a difference for the kids, teachers and administrators. I love the social aspect of an in person job. Now that people know my name and are happy to see me, I so look forward to hearing, “Good morning Ms. Smith!”

When we are alone and anxious, it can be very difficult not to wind up in a place a friend of mine called “Regretistan.” Regretistan is the Land of Regrets, of “What if?” of “I should have,” and “I wish.”

It’s a wretched place to be, yet the mind returns.

So I’ve learned an essential fact of survival when one is facing real economic difficulty:

Feelings do not pay the bills.

I may feel any number of ways about economic insecurity. I may miss the status of a fancy job, the routine of knowing where I’m going when I get up in the morning, the feeling of being on a path or track of some kind that leads to somewhere I either want to or feel I’m supposed to go.

But none of those feelings pay the bills. If they become too all-consuming, they distract me from doing things that actually pay the bills.

Sometimes I try a game: I challenge myself to take x amount of time off from thinking about the past or the future beyond the very immediate.

Pretend that an involuntary day off is just a day off, a nice one to do a few things I’ve been meaning to do or just spend more time petting her Fluffy Majesty.

Some years ago I read something that really stuck with me. I paraphrase:

“We always imagine that a different future would have been better. But there’s a 50-50 chance it would have been worse.”

That’s true, you know.

If I had never had financial difficulty, I never would have started teaching. I’m not sad when I’m teaching because the smiles on the kids’ faces when they see me make it all worth it. Really. I know I could do more as a full time teacher if I get a chance. I was full time before, in a situation that was impossible. Now I know things I didn’t know then.

If I have a bake sale to pay for my teaching certification, would you buy a cupcake?

Today is Caturday, and it is Valentine’s Day. My friend Ken is coming over and I’m finally going to make the meatloaf he requested. Loviefluffy loves Ken - she let him pet her the first time they met, almost eleven years ago, which never happens.

Sometimes when I’m awake in the night transfixed with worry, I pet Loviefluffy and think to myself, “If this were my last night, I would not want to have spent it worrying.” So I cuddle up around her and am just thankful for the peace and quiet and being able to be with my little kitty. It’s a break from pointless worrying.

We all have worries. I’ve been close to enough well off to very rich people to know that a lot of them are miserable with worry - it’s just a different kind of worry. We are all carrying burdens that others can not see. The worry in me recognizes the worry in you. I’m sending you virtual flowers and a hug if you would like one.

And a song from the Sound of Music:

“I have confidence that spring will come again!”