It’s a tradition to give an overview of the past year on December 31 and talk about New Year’s resolutions on January 1. I’m going to break with this tradition, just because I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, and give you my overview of 2012.
Last January I secured a teaching position at the department of my choice. I was excited about it for several reasons. First of all, I had the feeling I could use some other experiences in the teaching field. Up until then I had only worked with students between the ages of 12 and 15 and in the lowest levels of secondary education. My new position would give me the opportunity to work with older students and students from other levels. Secondly, I would be teaching at a new upper school so I got to develop my own programme and so I get to do what I like and what I think would be good for the students. Thirdly, it was a change of environment. After working with the same people for five years, I thought it would be nice to see and get to know some of my other colleagues in another department. Lastly, I needed an internship for my studies and this would have been the only position at my school at which I would have been able to do the internship.
I turned 28 and my neighbourhood was being “terrorised” by swans in February. They were literally everywhere and they were anything but shy. I also had to do a mini-presentation in front of my prospective upper school students to introduce myself to them and tell them a little bit about my subject (English language and literature – in case you were wondering). It was also in February that I saw two of my female colleagues kissing in an office with the door open. Yes.
March was a bad month for me. I was feeling depressed and my anxiety was beginning to play up. It was also the month I saw “The Woman in Black” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. My husband still hadn’t started looking for a job and was being secretive and closed-off about anything to do with that particular subject. I couldn’t remember feeling more frustrated in my life.
April was only slightly better because I got him to talk about it. We were now just living from the money I was making and this made me feel incredibly insecure and on edge. Meanwhile I was also struggling at work with one of my students. He became almost unbearable to have in the classroom and he developed a physical condition, which probably was psycho-somatic in nature, but managed to scare the crap out of me every time it played up. It made me wonder if a teacher could ever really dislike a student. By the end of April I was feeling so trapped in my own life that I thought I would go crazy; it was like my insides were trying to beat their way out of my body.
In May my husband and I got involved in a housing project in our home town and we applied for our own plot so we could start building a house there. May also marked our two-year anniversary. This was also the month that I found my husband still fast asleep when I went home in my break (around noon) because I forgot to bring something to school and I just blew up. May was also the month of the movie festival in Cannes. I started with an acne treatment I read about on acne.org and it was hell, but it worked. There was an unpleasant side-effect though…
In June we received the good news that we were allowed to participate in the housing project and that we could go on to the next step: finding a construction adviser. I was also participating more and more in the department where I would begin working in September. Meanwhile my husband hadn’t received any news about his research proposal and he still wasn’t trying to look for a(nother) job. As for the side-effect of the acne.org treatment: my eyebrows were slowly becoming lighter and lighter due to the peroxide in the cream. In my department, we also said goodbye to one of my favorite colleagues who was going to retire. I felt sad to see someone go who taught me a lot about being a teacher.
I made the mistake of flipping back in my diary to what happened in July 2011 in July 2012 and I had another low-moment. It was quite a shock to discover that everything was basically still the same and it made me feel helpless to think I wasn’t the one who could really do anything about it. I hate feeling out of control. I read “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green and was blown away by the beauty of a YA novel.
In August – during the summer holiday – I took my dog Rufus to the vet because he had some kind of “pimple” next to his lip and it was diagnosed as a histiocytoma. It had to be removed and be sent away for examination to see whether it was benign or malignant. After a gruelling week we got the test results back and it appeared to have been malignant but they had been able to remove the “thing” entirely so that Rufus was now “cured”. This was one of the most painful weeks of my life. Looking at this dog, my buddy, my companion, my comfort, my joy every day and thinking if he’d still be with us in a year and if he would be in pain… Thankfully we caught it on time for it not to have spread.
In September I got to know my new mentor group in my new department. It was a nerve-wrecking start of the new school year since I am a perfectionist when it comes to my work and I want to make sure everything works out the way I planned in advance. My group turned out to be a great group with incredibly fun students! I also was pleasantly surprised by the movie “Drive”.
October came and my husband turned 29, heading towards that big three-oh. For some reason thirty has always seemed to me to signify having your life in order, but as it looked at this moment nothing could be further from the truth. This month also meant an all-time low in 2012. I was feeling extremely depressed and was starting to think about death and dying, which hadn’t happened to me in over a decade. Doubting myself in my personal life also made me doubt myself in my professional life. Was I any good? Was I too easy? Should I be firmer and more assertive? Up until this month I thought a “breaking heart” was just a metaphor, but now I know you can actually feel your heart breaking when you’re under enough emotional stress. On the other hand, Rufus also turned 6 which meant he was still with us.
At the beginning of November my mood was in such a bad shape the only thing I actually felt like doing was sitting in front of the TV. Of course, life just went on and I had to go to work, do the groceries, and walk Rufus. My husband and I signed the buyer’s agreement for the plot of land. Despite my own gloomy mood, I tried to talk my husband out of his. My father-in-law received the devastating news that he was being let go by the company he had been working for almost his entire life – 35 years – due to reorganisations.
In December we took our construction adviser to a couple of meetings with constructors/architects to talk about our wishes for our house. This was a really exciting time and was a shrill contrast to almost everything else around me. My husband also finally took a job as a telemarketer. This made me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because he was finally going to start making his own money again after an entire year, sad because he is a guy with two master degrees… such a waste. On December 31, 00:00 o’clock my husband hugged and kissed me, promising me a better year in 2013. I hope with all my heart he’ll keep this promise, because – to be honest – 2012 was a year I would’ve rather skipped.
