Ageism Is Real And I Am Under Attack And Burned Out

 

    I am as tired of my voice as you are, trust me.

    I am also tired of being a "Cautionary Tale". I'd like to have my own life now, please. One I chose. One with llamas and alpacas, a career that I enjoy and no money worries.

    I desperately want to be happy, but like Martha "I do not wish to be happy, and yes, I wish to be happy".  To be fair, we are all exhausted by our own psyche and the needs of the psyches of those we love, or in my case, don't love but have to be supportive of because I am their teacher.

     I feel like I have owned the situation that I created for myself because I cannot shut up and lost my career. I have paid my dues, I have done All Of The Things, and still, I feel trapped in my punishment. "Trapped" is real in teaching after you cross about year 15, as you cannot hop districts without losing years. If you add to that the fact that you have crossed age 50, you are living your worst absurdist nightmare, devoid of a companion or even a hat. Or a turnip, I'd take a turnip. I can't say that I've ever eaten a turnip. What even is a turnip? I looked it up. It looks like an onion, like an onion, it grows in the ground like an onion. Why would you eat a turnip raw? Is there something I missed in Beckett's choice of carrot/ turnip?  All the research is focused on the carrot, and how it gets worse the more you eat, which right now feels like a metaphor for living life, which gets worse the older you get...but what about the turnip?

     Perhaps I am the turnip. Ugly, mistaken for a carrot. I'm actually nothing. They wanted a carrot, but got me. I'm a fraud. They wanted a carrot, and I'm crunchy like a carrot, but the older I get, I taste more like a potato. I do not know where this metaphor is going.

    In practical terms, the situation is this: I ran myself out of one building and in a panic, took a job in another district. Now I can't get out, I can't even get an interview. I have no idea why. We are allegedly in A Teaching Crisis, but from where I stand, this only applies to younger teachers. My colleague who is 29 and in a similar content area, has had six interviews. I have had two. Neither building would say it, but I know once they saw me all bets were off. I'm old. And they assumed (they are right) I will not accept their pitiful offering of a pay scale beginning at eight years, when I'm sitting at nineteen. Which is ageism as the bottom line, and why my absurdist nightmare will never end. I am trapped in this building, trapped in this district. A colleague this morning said "When you sign on here, you are trapped because nobody is going to pay any better than this district."

    Everyone knows teachers are hideously under paid, but they don't know that ones leaving can afford to, they have their 30 y ears. There are many of us who cannot leave because we started late, and would love to switch districts for safety reasons, but cannot because nobody will pay us enough to pay our mortgages. 

    Another colleague called them "Golden handcuffs", but that is not accurate, as I have no hope of retiring alive. Somebody's gonna shoot or shank me before I reach 65, which is when I will be able to retire. So I'm staying in one place because I cannot find another vocation that will pay my bills, and I labor under the delusion that IF I stay, I will reap the bountiful benefits of a teacher retirement plan.

    And so, all in all to sum up and in conclusion: Ageism equals not getting hired because you are too expensive in public schools, or because you are old and they assume you are close to retirement, burnout is real, and one should not try to improve one's circumstances if one is over the age of 50.