My passion

I am grateful lately for my job. Nine years ago I was working at a job in the travel industry (miserably) and I was in a disastrous relationship. I remember the day I went to Denny's with my mom and just bared my soul, right there in the booth. The date was 9-9-09. I remember because I still have a piece of paper that we wrote on as we talked. I was going through some major anxiety and mom helped me sort things out. That conversation and meeting with my mom was a turning point in my life. I began to consider a different life than the one I was heading towards and just the changing of my thoughts eventually led to me changing my life for good. I began to build up some confidence and became excited about what could be. I knew that changing jobs would mean a pay cut but I decided I'd rather be happy doing something I loved rather than working for more money doing something I could care less about. I ended up taking a job in a preschool that changed my life. I began to love going to work every day and felt fulfilled. I became motivated to educate myself in the field so I could learn more and eventually teach in an elementary school. I moved out on my own and was loving life again. I felt free. So here I am 9 years later still in a job I love. In these 9 years I have learned a lot about myself. I learned that I am pretty controlling. I work best as the alpha teacher (usually without a co-teacher). I rely way too heavily on outside praise to feel good about the great job I do every day and I have a serious passion for what I do. It has taken all 9 years, lots of ups and downs, lots of learning lessons, lots of classes and reading and discussions and worrying and job interviews and deciding weather I should settle again just to have a job or take a chance and branch out. I have continued to grow and finally graduated with my degree which allowed me to find a place where I have been able to create my own program for children who need one more year of schooling before they enter kindergarten. I got to order an entire classroom of supplies and materials and got a pretty good pay raise. I finally get summers off, get to dismiss the kids at 3:00 and I get to work in a room by MYSELF-it's all mine!! I get to work with a group of the most wonderful supportive, kind and generous professionals I've ever had the opportunity to work with! All the years of hard work and continued growing have brought me here and I wouldn't change anything. I hope that I'll keep growing and in nine more years can say I'm still happy with what I'm doing and feeling as fulfilled with my job. Now to work on the rest of my life...