Quitting, Loving, and Laughing My Way Through the Year That Was

Time goes by; somehow, I remain.

I have very little experience in the “Reflect On The Past Year” department.

Usually, I just watch the calendar pages fall down, with minimal introspection and even less planning.

I could show you my multiple to-do lists, calendars, planners, and the notifications and alarms I set up every day, only to snooze them so I can ignore them later.

So far, I have been bad at managing time. And I’m not doing so hot when it comes to memory.

Therefore, when I try to think about the good and the bad that happened in the last year, I tend to come up empty-handed because I’m usually just surviving, with little appreciation for the here and now.

But today, to shake things up, I want to try to remember exactly why I fight every day to be alive and do the things I love. There must be a reason why I’m so stubborn. I refuse to believe it is simply out of pettiness, not that it wouldn’t be reason enough…

I wrote.

I wrote as much as my lack of focus allowed me to. Sure, my output was significantly reduced compared to last year, but I still find it fascinating that I made it a point to put words on the screen, even when all I wanted was to stare at the wall.

I created essays, movie reviews, poems, and silly tweets. I played with Tumblr posts and even put pen to paper to compose ideas I might never type.

I don’t always love what I write. This year, I have found myself struggling a lot to finish stories, even when they were almost done. For some reason, that final paragraph has felt impossible to write too many times. That’s why I have so many unfinished drafts staring at me, aching to be finished or, in an act of mercy, deleted.

And yet, despite all of the above, I wrote.

I made choices. And then I took action.

I am a professional procrastinator. Oh, you think there’s no way I can keep pushing off this task for later?

Watch this.

I’m very good at finding unimportant and yet seemingly urgent tasks that I must get done before the stuff I should actually be doing. I will let the laundry sleep in the dryer for several days until some super relevant task is dropped in my lap, so of course, it becomes imperative that I fold and put my clothes away right now.

As a consequence, I end up going to bed very late at night and then struggling to wake up, all because I keep trying to get things done in the final hours of the day.

I thought about this and realized one of the reasons I do it is because I cannot stand my teaching job anymore. Basically, every night, I get back home eager to waste some time so I can compensate for the miserable hours I spent at school.

Does it make sense? No. Does it make me feel better? Also no. Have I come up with a potential solution? Actually, I did…

This year, I took the first necessary steps in order to quit.

Soon, very soon, I won’t be a teacher anymore. As I wrote somewhere else, I’m terrified but also excited.

Obviously, this implies looking for other options to keep making money, with an emphasis on choosing activities that won’t make me feel like I want to die.

And I’m already on it. There’s no going back. So you better buckle up because I’m going to fake it till I make it.

I loved.

Once the decision to quit was made, I realized how much I’m going to miss my students. Sure, they can be annoying and even more stubborn than me, but in the past few years, I finally found a way to connect with them, and I know there will be days when I wish I could still do that.

However, then I remembered all the ways in which my teaching job is destroying my health — not because of them; seriously, they are the best part of the job — and I reaffirmed my decision to quit.

I have loved spending time with my students. I love that moment when I can tell they finally get it. I’m glad that, despite how soul-sucking the job was, there was still something good about it, which means I didn’t waste 20 years of my life.

I also love that, even though all of this year I have seriously doubted my writing skills — see section two — I have written a few sentences I’m very proud of. I’m happy that I have managed to power through my indecision and click on the publish button, even if it hasn’t happened that frequently. And I’m very grateful that I get to make a side income because of my ramblings, which, in turn, allows me to devote more time to keep the shenanigans going.

Switching to my personal life, I love that my son is growing up. He’s not a kid anymore, and he’s starting to set boundaries, which makes me very optimistic. Since the moment I was informed he is autistic, one of my greatest fears has been people taking advantage of him.

However, this past year, he has proven to be very good at standing up for himself.

I cannot explain what a relief that is…

Now I’m going to get all jittery while I tell you I love my boyfriend. I’m grateful we got to spend time together despite the 250 miles between us and our schedules not always lining up. I love that when we talk on the phone, we always say, “I love you, and I miss you,” and we mean it. There are other things I love about him, but I’m not going to write them here because this platform insists we keep everything very PG-13.

Finally, I’ll get into the trivial stuff that ends up being important: I’m grateful for all the movies I watched this year, the books I read, the miles I traveled, the new foods I got to taste, and the old favorites I revisited.

And I should also say I’m thankful that I can be petty, stubborn, and sometimes too stupid to figure out the things right in front of me, but that’s okay because this gives me even more writing material.

I’m going to end this on a clichéd note by saying that, all things considered, this has been a great year, although we should acknowledge the fact that, one way or another, they all are. After all, if we are here to learn our lessons, even the painful ones, it means we are still here to mess around.

Hooray, we did it! We get to try again!

Don’t worry! You can now visit me on Substack or buy me a coffee.