I have been dreading it for weeks, months even. Receiving the letter yesterday was, by no means, a surprise, and yet I felt strangely caught off-guard. I managed to make it from the principal's office to my classroom before bursting into tears. If you are an optimist, that means I am getting better at this. This is my fourth year of teaching, and my fourth time getting laid off. That means four years of worry, a million staff meetings where pity-filled eyes turn to you, a thousand questions in the hallway in the months to come: "Have you heard anything yet?" I know that it has to do with politics, budget cuts, what's happening in Olympia and all that, but I find it difficult, after putting my heart and soul into this, not to take it personally. My eyes are burning this morning after last night's tears, and my back is stooped with the weight of trying to keep my shoulders held high.
The practical side of me wonders what I am supposed to do with the letter. Am I to tape it to the fridge like a watercolor painting? Should I file it away and pretend it never happened? Do I shred it? Frame it? Spill my coffee on it? Would I feel better if I folded it into a paper airplane and sailed it off the side of a bridge?
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