Meaningful Work and the 23-Year Journey

For more than two decades (23 years and one week, to be precise), my professional identity was college writing teacher. Even during a period with a part-time administrative appointment, my core professional identity was teacher.

When I accepted my current administrative position, I found myself grieving over the loss of that identity. I was no longer what I had been for nearly half my life. One day I was in the car with my son. He made a minor grammatical error as he spoke, and then he said, "Ha! You can't correct me any more because you aren't an English teacher now!" After I sat in stunned silence, I burst into tears. I loved my job, and I loved being an English teacher, and stepping away from that was so very hard.

As much as I came to love my new job and the people with whom I work, I missed my old job. I missed people I'd befriended over my ten years at my previous campus. I missed the familiarity of my life--two classes per day surrounded by plenty of unscheduled time to use for grading, planning, and community building (aka, talking with colleagues and students). I knew the rhythms of the day, the week, and the semester. I loved knowing my job and knowing what to expect. When people asked me if I missed my job, the answer was "yes"--despite the fact that I loved my new job.

Two months ago, one of my colleagues asked me not if I missed my old job but if I missed teaching.

Imagine my shock when I realized that the answer was "no."

What I had found most meaningful in my previous job was neither the subject nor the classroom; it was the interactions with individual students at moments of decision-making and transformation. When I came home from work and was asked about my day, I did not talk about helping students understand what a thesis is or a student's excitement at finding the perfect source for a research paper; instead, I responded with stories about students trying to decide on a major, struggling with parental pressures, and working through relationship issues. Those were the things I loved most about teaching, and those are the things I get to do every single day where I am now.

It is quite disconcerting to realize that I don't miss what I had loved for more than twenty years. I feel so blessed to have discovered what it is I find meaningful and important about my professional activities. Had this job not happened, I would have managed to be happy for another twenty years doing what I'd been doing. And I would have missed the chance to make a difference in a way that matters to me more than I could have known.