UPDATE: Thank you to the many, many of you who offered your encouragement, help and meals after I shared the piece below. Many people asked what they could do to help, so a friend of mine set up a GoFundMe for me. I have been humbled beyond belief that more than 50 people have donated to date. I’m so, so grateful to be part of this community, and to have received such a clear indication that I am seen and valued. Thank you. Truly.
Hello Students and Parents of Students,
Monday, March 4, was supposed to be the day that officially launched registration for both spring session and summer camps. This is will not be the case for either.
The good news—for me anyway—is that the reason I won’t be launching registration for spring session is because the classes are already full. Most of the students in winter session chose to continue, and any empty spots were filled with kiddos on the wait list.
The news that feels tough for me is that I’ve decided not to run any summer camps after all.
I have also decided not to open a wait list for fall classes for now—there is a chance I will decide during the summer that I will not continue to teach classes in the fall.
That’s the short version. You can read more about why that’s the case below.
If you want to stay informed with future decisions about Leavenworth Spanish classes, please add yourself to the mailing list.
In 2021, I got diagnosed with Lyme Disease, on top of mold sickness that came from a house I’d been renting (and no longer live in). These diagnoses came as a relief: I finally had specific, medical reasons for why I felt so awful.
I started various treatments and started to get better.
And then I didn’t.
Last fall, I sprained my ankle really badly and got a cold on the same day. That somehow set off a chain of events that have led back to a relentless fatigue that I’m having a hard time kicking. It’s a long, frustrating story that I will spare you here, but you can check out my blog to learn more. How I feel goes up and down, but the fatigue seems to come back, regardless of the many things I do and doctors I see.
I absolutely love teaching your kids, folks. Hearing their stories, and the funny things they say. Their blunt statements about how much they love or hate something. How they just express any emotion as they have it, and then it goes away and they move on. I love it enough that I’ve always been really careful to only do it as much as I can and still show up for them. I’ve never pursued becoming a full-time teacher because, even at the best of times, I wouldn’t have the energy to be the kind of teacher I want to be—the kind who can stop to listen to what they say; who puts their needs first; who can pivot based on what’s going on for the class that day—if I had to do it all day, every day.
As my energy has waxed and waned, it’s become harder to strike that balance. This spring, I’ve condensed my classes a bit instead of trying to fill all the ones I taught in the fall and winter sessions as an attempt to continue to show up for your kids and for myself. Of course, the hours teaching is only one part of the business. The rest of it is all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes: taxes and payroll and registration and curriculum development and class prep and putting together notebooks and ordering supplies and picking up snacks, etc.
The amount of energy it will take to teach week-long summer camps is not an amount I currently have to give. And although that may change between now and when the first dates roll around, it also may not. I can’t continue to try and plan my life around how well I hope to be in the future. I have to start operating based on how I feel right now.
This summer will also be an experiment of sorts: it will give me some time off teaching to help me decide if continuing to teach is the best decision for me long-term. Because even though I love to do it, the amount of energy I have to teach does not coincide with the amount of money I need to bring in to support myself, especially with all the medical expenses I have. And all the ways I’ve tried to increase revenue in other ways have not paid off so far, either. At this point, it feels like the choices are find a part-time job to supplement my income and continue to teach—something I do not have the time or energy for in this current configuration—or look for another job entirely.
These are hard decisions, folks. And I’ve been going back and forth a lot about what decision is the right one for me. I need some time to think about it. And this summer has apparently become that time.
If you want to stay informed about future decisions about Leavenworth Spanish classes, please add yourself to the mailing list. At some point during the summer, I will send out an update about whether I will plan to teach classes in the fall.
Thanks for reading.
Morgan