Crying for Sanity

March 21, 2012

Well, we have hit that point again. The point where I want to throw in the towel and call it quits. I have just over 90 days left on my contract, which is about 14 weeks, and some of them are short weeks. This seems unbearable, no matter how I look at it. Sure, every day I finish is one closer to the end, but since we had 100 days, the days seem to be dragging on. The weather is improving, but all I want to do is sleep. I get up and shower and go back to bed until I have to get up for class. I sleep at lunch. It’s everything I can do to not sleep after school (which then causes me to not sleep at night). I am still having nightmares. I can barely convince myself to leave my room – and when I do it is normally because I am out of food. Then, only if I try really hard, will I walk to town. My diet absolutely sucks – and the little I can do about it, I don’t care to. I find myself frustrated at the kids for the smallest things. I am annoyed at their pronunciation of words. I am annoyed when they can’t sing the song. I am annoyed when they talk. I am tired of the songs by the end of the first day of songs (with 2 more to go…). I have been trying to find something great about each day and my answer falls to… I had a nice nap or my shower was the perfect temperature or something similar. I am tired of people speaking languages that I don’t care to learn. I am just tired of teaching and tired of China. And, I haven’t had a real hug in 9 months and damnit I want one.

I am tired of trying. I am tired of pretending. All the sleep in the world isn’t fixing the problem and I am long past the point of caring. It’s wearing on me. It’s wearing hard on me. I am almost worn down. I don’t care about my job, I don’t care if my students pass or fail. If they want to fool around, hopefully their grades will reflect that they don’t care. OF course, how can a child care when their teacher doesn’t? Am I just doing everyone a disfavor? I find myself so beat down by this that I am losing all confidence in myself. I was asked today if I wanted to take on a lead volunteer position when I return. Although this position is something that has always frightened me a little bit, it is something that before I left home, I had the confidence to try. Now, after feeling like a failure for so long, I find myself thinking I am not capable of taking it on again. It would be good for me to do it; it would look good on my resume, and would help me with future things. But, I am so destroyed by teaching that I wonder if I will do more damage than good. If the person who asked knew what a mess I was, would she have asked me? I should have the time to commit to it, and it shouldn’t be too stressful with the life I see happening when I get home. And, I want back into that world…
And that has me thinking. Is it quitting when both your mental and physical health is suffering? Is it quitting when you feel like there is nothing left in life worth getting up for? Is it quitting when emails from home are the only things that make me smile? There is still a part of me that knows that I don’t want to be labeled a quitter. But, tonight, there is far more of me that wants my sanity back. A year ago, I loved who I was and what I wanted out of life. Today, I cannot honestly say that. I feel like I have become a shadow. I am going through the motions because, what else is there to do? I don’t want to live like this anymore. But, I am not seeing a way out here. I pray. I try to convince myself to change it. The reasons not to are so much stronger.

I could quit. It would screw the school over a little and that is something that I don’t really want to do. The school has been good to me, and they are a good school. It’s just not the right fit for me, but I think it is the job rather than the career. I don’t know what it is exactly, but in my heart, ESL is still an option, just not at this time. I would have to pay my way out. It wouldn’t be the first time I paid myself out of a bad situation for my sanity. It’s not an ideal solution, but it is doable. I (well, maybe Mom) paid for me to drop out of school past the drop out date when my course load was too heavy for my health issues and me to deal with. I essentially (without knowing it) paid Dennis out of my life. I paid for his bus ticket out of town, and that saved me a lot in the long run. I could pay to break my contract and go home. It wouldn’t be much more than I paid to get rid of Dennis. For my sanity, would it be worth it, absolutely. But, I also have a strong conscience. And breaking my contract and screwing others over isn’t really the way I like to live. Are the others more important than me, or is it the other way around? I know I should be able to suck it up for 3 months – really that is not that long. But I feel like I have been sucking it up for seven months longer than I should have. The question that remains is… is three months going to destroy me? Right now, the answers feel like an overwhelming yes.

Then there is the logical part of me. There is at least one care package in the mail for me. I can’t go home without it can I?!

Do I bother talking to people here about it? I don’t see any answers that can fix it. The problem is me. Although I still have classes that are better than others, none of them are currently bringing me joy – although the easy ones make me laugh sometimes… I have no desire to be social. I don’t even want to talk to anyone. I could spend all day alone and feel just as good as if I was in public. I have no desire to exercise, even just walking. I don’t have a desire to knit. I sit here and stare at my computer – hoping it will give me answers or something. Sometimes I play solitaire for hours before I realize that hours have passed – and it’s not even a fun or exciting game! I only eat when my stomach makes me get up to find food. My fruit often goes bad before I get around to it. I know I am in a bad place. I have no desire to change it here. I convince myself that at home, I would have the desire. At least going to town wouldn’t be an effort in everything! Shopping is a hassle. The Chinese is too much for me to understand. Trying to socialize outside of the school is so much effort. And, I just don’t fit in here well enough.

I want to go home. It’s merely a battle between being a quitter and messing others over, and if I am worth the financial pitfall I would take. I don’t know the answers, but I know I am not happy.