I have been applying for teaching jobs each hiring season - that is January to August for those who don't teach - since my daughter was 5 years old. I am hampered by location since I can't pack up my family to move for a job with a teacher's salary when my husband makes the bulk of the money at his job in DC. I only look for jobs in MD and DC because of traffic between MD and VA.is crazy. Teaching jobs even in the best schools do not pay a high enough salary to justify a move away from Geff's job which is in DC, he is paid well and only a three figure job could even be worth discussing moving for. I only look for art teaching jobs or museum work because that is what I know best and have the most education in.
For awhile I was on the rolls of Candy, Sandoe and Associates a teacher placement firm, for a year I applied for jobs they sent me. I went to interviews many times and job fairs two years in a row, full of hope the first year, second not so much. At the second job fair I realized that along with one other older person a man in a blue suit, I was the only one with even the slightest bit of gray in her hair, I spent the day sitting waiting to be called to interview talked to two schools with no results. I stopped using CSA soon after.
I started looking in to making my own way and was very excited about the possibilities of starting my own studio, running my own show, but when it got down to it realized that any risk I took financially would impact my family and that while I didn't care for myself. I would never hear the end of it or totally forgive myself if we wound up in deeper debt because of my failure if the business didn't take off. My therapist told me that I was my own worst enemy, talking myself down and out of things that had an equal chance of success or failure.
I still want to open my own studio, a place to do my own work and teach others about clay. I am frozen because I am not a numbers person and the idea of having to go speak to some one who doesn't know me about something I have wanted for more then 20 years and give them the power to say yes or no definitively about it when they approve or deny a loan request is too horrible. The idea of a crowd sourced venture is appealing but the possibility that no one, not even my friends or family might even think to take part would be a hard blow to absorb. When I had my shop on ETSY I was open for two years before I made two small sales to people I did not know, not even one of my over 300 relatives on either side of the family or Geff's bothered to buy anything or I'll wager take a look at the site at all. They could have but I realize that my art, while pretty wasn't really compelling enough and it shouldn't have been since I was only half invested in making it. I was only making it to sell not because it was something I HAD to create. In another words the art said nothing more then "here I am, I'm decorative, hang me on your wall." Art requires nothing more or less then a full investment of time and energy or else it shows, and with out a full commitment of energy and heart no matter how much time you put in to it you cannot charge a price which makes it worth while to sell.
So recently I tried again, I hadn't been excited about a teaching job application in a long time but I applied, I tried not to get too hopeful, just hopeful enough to try. I went in and interviewed and thought it went well, then I waited for more then 20 days and got more certain with every day that I would not hear from the school, tired again to pretend I didn't care that there would be other jobs that it wasn't because of my age, my ADHD, or my openness about it. I know it was it was some combination of age, of delivery of lines, timing, impulsive behavior. If I had only not sent the email I sent yesterday by accident, the copy of the letter which was not fully edited and showed all my weaknesses. which brought a swift and negative response from the head of school, telling me that they weren't going to consider me, and an out of office reply from the other person who interviewed me and liked me. If only I had waited, been patient, done nothing perhaps their first choices would have not worked out and I would have been there as a possible candidate instead of eliminated by my own impatience and impulsive actions. I couldn't leave it, couldn't wait, had to take control of the situation some how. I really wanted that teaching job, it was in such a great school, it was teaching the range of students I always wanted from K to 8th grade -- and it was also near by, a short commute, something I don't really care about much but it would have been nice. I also hate that I left a bad impression with a poorly written letter.
Now is the time to look back and reassess, to look at my skills and abilities and see what I can do besides teach, I do not want to sell things or administer things, and lord help the person who depended upon me to keep their schedule or organize things more then once ( I am fine with sorting things out and setting up an organized system of my own and even maintaining it for awhile but doing that everyday would bore me to tears and then I would start to fail.
Right now that is what I feel like, a failure, in virtually all aspects of my life, not a total failure but just not very good, a not very good mom, a not very good housewife, a not very good wife, or friend or daughter. Mediocre, just okay nothing special. I guess that is okay, but it feels like crap and I hate it.
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