The Seven Year Itch

I remember, a long time ago, someone telling me that when you are in a relationship, it's common to get what's called a seven year itch -- the desire for a change or the feeling that somewhere else lies greener grass. My partnership with Ann is by no means in jeopardy, but my relationship with my role as a teacher is once again creating a burning sensation under my skin.

Perhaps it's the loss of my teaching partner who, in her early thirties, has decided that she needs to stretch her occupational wings and give something other than teaching a try. Perhaps it's the end of the year exhaustion that I'm currently feeling on this last day of school. Perhaps it's the sun, which has decided to break through the recent rain, that calls me from a distance. Or perhaps there really is a cycle of seven years and a need to scratch at something different.

I've talked a million times about my work, about how teaching is meaningful, yes, but damn exhausting. My head feels so full today I know it will take me at least two weeks to push out all the details I meticulously hold all year long and make room for other thoughts or better yet, no thoughts at all. And a million times I've talked about finding some other work, about resting my "apples" in some other job that is less mentally and even physically demanding. But the restlessness of quitting teaching grows all the more mighty on the nose of seven years. It's no wonder that today, while I was signing the last yearbook and packing up the last supplies that I realized 21 years have gone by. For 21 years I've been taking attendance, negotiating with students (and their families), grading papers, smoothing out dilemmas, attending faculty meetings (the bane of any teacher's existence), and all the other microcosmic details required of every teacher and 21 IS divisible by 7.

But this turn of seven somehow feels different. Or maybe it isn't really at all. Maybe I'm always here, always at this crossroads of reflection and consideration. Do I leave and really make the leap into something other than teaching or do I stay and wait for another seven years to roll around and the flame under my skin to burn even hotter?