I'm a teacher...

I knew it for my entire life.  Most elementary students have no idea what they want to be when they grow up.  Or if they do, it often doesn't pan out by the time that they are older.  When I was in elementary school I knew that I wanted to be a teacher.  By the time that I was in middle school my plan to be a teacher still hadn't changed.  By the time I hit high school I was still convinced that I would be a teacher.  In my junior  year I had a US history teacher who changed my life.  Mrs. Dobson.  Sitting in her US history class, I realized that I wanted to be her.  I wanted to teach history.  That desire never changed from then on.  I got my degree and that's what I did.

Without a full time job last year substitute teaching still got me close enough to classrooms that I didn't have to opportunity to miss teaching.  I didn't have a chance to miss having my own classroom.  I was far too preoccupied to think about it.

This year I lay down in bed at night and pray to God to get me back to Indiana and a teaching job.  Since that is something that I pray for literally every single night, I often find myself drifting off to sleep while lesson planning.  I know the word DORK is flashing through your brain.  When I was teaching full time, I was throwing lesson plans together when I walked through the door in the morning.  But now it is what I dream about.  I think about what I would do if I were a high school US history teacher.  Or what would my lesson plan be if I were teaching psychology.  On and on and on until I finally fall asleep.

I miss it.  I miss it a lot.  I am terrified that I will never teach again.