Sometimes everybody needs a break

On the last few months, I had a lot of time to think which wasn't and was as good as it sounds. It was good because I could rearrange my life and my thoughts, according to what I wanted, instead of doing whatever other people pretended me to do. But it wasn't because I stood night after night without sleeping, walking around the house, cleaning, preparing lessons I won't ever teach (because they were just for fun - YES, I prepare lessons for FUN), among other activities. The following day, I couldn't even breathe due to how tired I was. However, I went to work, had students over at my place, went to school and the 
English academy, gave online lessons, and continued to function as I normally do.

It is uncountable the amount of times I had done that, without even thinking what it was provoking in my body and mind. So, what was supposed to happen, finally happened. I broke. I literally broke. My mind was on airplane mode, my body wasn't even responding to the movements my mind was telling it to do. That was the exact point of no return in my life. That was the moment I knew I had to stop for a minute, take a deep breath and relax. Such a strange word and activity in my life. I couldn't remember the last time I had taken a moment to relax. On the following day, I was so tired, depressed and unwilling to do ANYTHING; but I had to go to the doctor, to talk about it, to see what I could do to sleep well, to actually feel well, so I could live my life, do my work and be with my loved ones without having to be all the time thinking about EVERYTHING.

And what the doctor told me, deserves another whole paragraph to itself.

The first thing he said to me without having any idea of why I was there to see him, was "Are you sleeping well? You look like a mess" And that was it. I needed that to explode. I needed someone to realise that I wasn't okay. The only thing I needed was someone to notice that I wasn't doing OK. And as always, it was my doctor who knew. We started talking, he began to explain what my body was going through when I didn't sleep or relax when the body needed it. A huge change in my life must be done. That's what I said to myself.

The resting entered my life slowly, with small changes in my routine and at the same time, sitting down with my mate next to me, thinking about my job life and what I really wanted to do with my life. I was working non-stop 24/7, I didn't have time to see my family or to spend time with my boyfriend and my cat. So my first big (I would say huge, but you would say that I overreact upon everything) decision was to quit one of my jobs. But, how could I do that? It would imply less income, less working hours, less responsability, a lot of less, but at the same time it was a lot of MUCH more time for me, for my family, and to dedicate to whatever I wanted to do. So, I did it. It took me a lot of writing and a lot of help from my best friend to decide which work I was going to quit, but it was easy in end. I decided to leave that place I loved the most, but was hurting me the same. It was my first place as an English teacher, where I had my own groups, but the working environment wasn't nice, or warm, so I went to work everyday complaining about everything, I came back home complaining, and everyday was a different problem or situation. So it wasn't a difficult decision to make in the end. I decided to quit, and I did it. Of course, my former boss wasn't happy about it, she complained about a couple of things, but I never told her the actual reason that lead me to sent her my resignation. I couldn't tell her. Because I have known her for four years, and I knew that she wouldn't understand. She stood up for people who were hurting students, didn't care about the well-being of the institute, and never ever thought of teaching as something magical or good. For them, it was just work and students were just clients. But for me, teaching is the most amazing thing that I could do to make the world a better place, and at the same time, make some money.

If we are going to talk about money and teaching, we all know that teachers are paid like shit, but I never cared about the money. I have always thought that if I wanted to be happy, I neede to do something that I really liked doing, so I wouldn't have to work a single day of my life. So, teaching was it. Teaching IS it. It's the thing that keeps me moving, but it's also the most consuming job on the planet.

(and I will leave this, like that. See you in another chapter. Promise to write it in Spanish!)