I must have felt some relief when I saw the official job offer in my inbox. I needed the money. But my memory is of almost instant apprehension.
Although I had sought to tutor local elementary school students, I felt uneasy now that it was a reality. This was more than the ordinary fear of a new job. I was afraid that taking the job would harm my precarious mental health.
In the fall of 2022, I was in crisis. After years of persevering through successive traumas—living alone and teaching virtually during quarantine, the deaths of a number of my students, the fatal car accident of my beloved brother, the sudden loss of my grandmother so soon after—I nearly stopped functioning.
Before that, I was thriving. My relationships with my students, or my crushes as I called them, nourished me, and I relished the daily opportunity to read, discuss, and write literature with Baltimore’s talented and tender teens. Outside of class, I ran several half marathons and was published in dozens of literary journals and media outlets. I edited local artists’ books and earned a 4.0 GPA in my graduate program at Johns Hopkins University. I bought a townhouse all by myself and maintained countless meaningful relationships.
But as the 2022-23 school year began, my 12th year as a high school English teacher, I was quickly starting to fail. I could no longer cook meals or do laundry. I was struggling to get through my days—and I had no end in sight. The accumulation of fear, isolation, and grief became such a crushing weight that I had no choice. I had to prioritize my health above all else.
I went on emergency medical leave and finally left the career that had brought me so much joy.
For months, I focused solely on doing what made me feel better. The constellation of deep sleep, supportive family, patient friends, and good books soothed my frazzled nervous system. In my biweekly therapy appointments, I reflected, cried, raged, and grew.
By the time I applied for that tutoring position in early 2024, I still had more questions than answers about my life, but I also had, thankfully, hope. Between my hard-earned recovery and the encouragement I received during my interviews (“I know you come from a strong background working with teenagers, but you have such great kid energy”), I knew it was time to try and join the so-called real world.
I wondered if school was the right place to make this decision. It wasn’t until after I left teaching that I realized that throughout my career, I had been exposed to disaster. Any day could be the day I lost another loved one or another school shooting. After working so hard to feel good again, it seemed unwise to return to a place that had made me so sick—even if, in some ways, I felt good.
As I had promised myself that I would stop as soon as I felt the need, I started tutoring without knowing how long I would last. Even though I understood early on that I probably wouldn’t need to stop, my mental health wavered until the end of the school year.
Tutoring required far less of me than teaching, but I still felt overwhelmed, even incapable, at first. Teaching high school English didn’t really prepare me for tutoring elementary school math students, especially kindergarteners, who initially rolled around and screamed their way through our lessons.
The money I earned relieved my financial anxiety, and I was thrilled with these little treasures, so I took on assignments at two other schools. At the same time, the rest of my life was going downhill. New writing opportunities felt more like chores than accomplishments. I stopped doing the small, important things that brought me joy: reading, walking with friends, listening to podcasts. I went weeks without seeing my loved ones, and I easily became overwhelmed by managing even the most basic to-do lists. My stress skyrocketed, and my doubts returned.
Although tutoring sometimes made me feel fragile, every day I also felt valued. Little ones fought over who would hold my hand, and my fellow tutors became my best friends. Some days I would get drawn pictures, and other days teachers would thank me for my efforts. Week after week, faces would light up and arms would spread wide when I entered the classroom.
It’s not that these moments of affection have negated my struggles this semester. Every time I took inventory of my life—assessing my stress level versus my satisfaction level, checking in on what made me feel better or worse—I wondered if this was the best I could hope for: a stable, secure life in which I treated myself with kindness, or some semblance of a professional life while everything else suffered to a greater or lesser extent.
Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never be “normal” again.
Often, in these moments of discouragement and even despair, I talk to someone I trust. What if I never regain the ability to work full-time? How am I supposed to manage my well-being while working? Why is it still so difficult after all the time and energy I’ve already devoted to my recovery?
Fortunately, each time, they remind me of what I already know but still have trouble believing: healing is not linear. It is complicated. Confusing.
They also show me how far I’ve come. I feel and function better today than I did 18, 12, or 6 months ago, even if my tough days make me easily forget that.
This tutoring gig was only temporary; next, I plan to coach writers, a career that will allow me to simultaneously pursue one of my passions and maintain a flexible schedule. As much as I wish things had gone better when I was tutoring, I’m also beginning to see that the messiness was inevitable. Transitions are tricky at the best of times, but I am not. The challenges I endured this spring are not an indictment of me or my progress; they are simply part of the process of moving forward, of trying to figure out the next right thing to do.
