Professional Metamorphosis

I've been at my job a month now. Every day I feel like I'm in a different world. So many transitions swirl around me that my body, mind, and world seem to be spinning.

This week, I am starting to have a sense of routine. This is good. I find that I love the school. Its mission is, truly, a mission--not just a mission statement. The spiritual part of me has been yearning for what happens here. I know this is where I belong right now.

It's ironic, though. I love the place and people where I am now, and I deeply miss the people and place I was before. I don't miss my actual job, though. My days are long, and then they're over. I have guilt-free Sundays, with no grading or planning at all.

Still (and this is the ironic part), I find that I am mourning the loss of that job more than I mourn the loss of people and place. I know I will see many of the people I care about again, and I can always visit. I mourn the loss of my professional identity. For more than twenty years, I was a college writing teacher. Every time I see an article that relates to something I would teach, I have to let it go. When I find myself with no papers to grade, I have to remind myself that it isn't what I do anymore. Letting myself experience this loss of such a core part of who I have been for two decades is even harder than I had imagined.

Meanwhile, I try to build a new professional sense of self, one that is imbued with this spiritual component. I feel I am reshaping myself from the inside out.

And I wonder, when the caterpillar is becoming a butterfly, does it know it is changing? Does it hurt?