Every day, I feel myself burning out more and more. I don’t know how much longer I can take being a substitute teacher.
Every month, it’s a big mystery to how much I’m going to be paid. Just when I think I’ll be able to work a full month and actually pay off some bills or save up some money, I can’t find any sub work which ruins all of my plans. After a year of it, I am incredibly sick and tired of it.
But no matter how many jobs I apply for, I can’t get anything. It’s like I’m stuck where I am with no hope of escape. I can’t quit, because I have to be able to pay my month-to-month bills (which is all a result of stupid decisions I made when I was younger.) So I’m forced to endure this because I have no alternative.
It’s an awful, awful sensation to feel like the world has closed itself off from you. Yet at times, that is precisely what I feel. Every time I get excited about a potentially cool opportunity, that door slams shut in my face. That group home lead position… Teaching drum lessons at my church… Going overseas to Japan to teach English. Even my idea of going to grad school to get a teaching credential has been shut down for now because there is simply no way I would be able to afford it. I’ve already accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in loans to just complete my undergraduate studies, so there is no way I could compound even more on top of it and still stay afloat financially.
I just feel like my quality of life has been slowly diminishing over the last few months because of all of this. Substitute teaching was never meant to be a long-term gig, yet it is becoming one since no other options have been coming to fruition. And it’s hard for me to get excited about other potential jobs that people tell me about because I’ve been let down too many times already in the past year from empty promises.
I can only hope that something changes before I completely sputter out.