Exactly Where I Am Supposed To Be

....aaaand it has arrived.  The beloved last day of school (with kids)!!!

Cue tears.  And dread.  And anxiety. And...wait, what?  What is WRONG with me?  Have I forgotten how to feel?  And then it hits me, like a group of first graders on a Friday with a full moon and indoor recess. Oh. Yeah.  I don't have to be sad, or anxious, or full of dread.
Two years, people.  Two years in the same school. Clear sailing, great end of the year review, no sign of going anywhere, back next year.  Two years probably doesn't seem like that big of an accomplishment to most people, especially for a teacher who's been out there for 10 years, but to your "lowly" (read: teacher who has the first program to be cut) specialist in Duluth, MN, this is a BIG deal.I've got art teacher friends in this town teaching for 5+ more years than me facing a future without a job right now. And here I am, not packing boxes (which I did once with a six week old baby strapped to the front of me 3 days before school started,) no uncertainty, no anxiety, no hard decisions.  I have stepped off the wheel of laid off, rehired at the last minute, laid off, rehired at the last minute, laid off, long term sub, para, now what?  Just me, and my room, and cleaning it up, and ordering supplies, and wishes, hopes and ideas already brewing for next year.  I had this gift last year, but this year it feel so much more real.  Anticlimactic in a way, but I guess this is what stability feels like.   And I am grateful, grateful, grateful.  Is my job hard?  Yep.  Is it stressful?  You betcha.  Am I exhausted?  Oh, yes sir.  But I knew what I signed up for.  And every morning, I get to get up, give the gift of art to kids, have them give it back to me, and get up and do it again the next day.  And I get to do it again next year.

And I remember being so pissed off every time it happened.  Why?  Why me?  Hurt, that God or the Universe would keep doing this to me every year.  Only to wake up on June 6, 2013, to find myself happy, content, pretty much complacent on the last day of school, exactly where I am supposed to be.  Because I always was.