I’m going to take the easy, not philosophical answer to this question today and say that I hope future Sarah sends me the winning Powerball numbers the next time the jackpot gets big enough to make the news. I want enough money for Josh to be able to retire early and for us to move far, far away from where we live now. I always said that I would move away if Josh died and I was still young enough to uproot my life and go somewhere else. Last night after coming home from the store, I told Josh about my renewed interest in getting as far away from here as I can and he said we could move now, but we’d have to sell the house and all that. I told him I’m fine with that. Of course, I wouldn’t actually go now. I’d never make Josh do that. This is the house he grew up in, I think it would break his heart to sell it and have other people living here.
It came up again last night because I ran into somebody as I was leaving the store and I would really like to stop running into people entirely. On Sunday at the grocery store, it was a teacher I worked with for a very long time at my old school. She was there when I was first hired. She retired 5 years ago, which was before I had even considered becoming the principal. She had heard about my role and of course, had questions. I had to recount the whys and hows. I told her why I left, and she gets it. She was much hated by my old “mentor” and it was very obvious.
But last night took the cake as far as seeing people from back then. As I was walking out of the store, this teacher was walking in. I started to turn my mouth up into a smile when we made eye contact. She was on the phone and did not smile. So I shut down what smile I was starting and walked past her. She didn’t acknowledge me and I didn’t acknowledge her. After my year as principal and how she was that year, I don’t know what I expected. I’m not surprised there was no fake smile and an awkward hug. That’s what I get when I run into other people from that era. Thank you therapy for not giving me anxiety about it. Instead, I got pissed off. Mad at running into yet another person from my past. I drove him blasting that song by Big Sean, “I Don’t F*** With You”. Also, “ABCDEFU” by Gayle made an appearance. Someone on Threads recommended “F*** You” by Lily Allen and so that was played on my way to work this morning.
Just like I have been spilling the tea about my old “mentor”, let me serve up the tea on another player in that whole shitty game I played as principal. I’ll leave out anything identifiable, although, nothing I say here is a lie. Everything is absolutely true. As that “mentor” would say, “I’m just being honest.”
I won’t tell you what grade she taught, though it was a grade with much younger kids than middle school. Her whole problem with me that year is that I wouldn’t expel a kid in her class that she had problems with. From what I understand, every year there was always one student she had a problem with. She would turn that student into her whipping boy/girl and make their lives miserable. I can’t even remember this boy’s name, which is good, because that means my mind is healing from it and letting go of details I don’t want anymore. That kid did have behavior problems but as I observed, it was because she antagonized him and egged him on and made him that way. He was always fine when she wasn’t there.
She got so enraged by him one Friday that she came to my office around 1:00(ish) and was in tears and pleaded with me to expel him and complained about how she couldn’t take it anymore, etc. Then, she said she had to go home. She got up from her seat and walked out of the building and went home. Later she told me she didn’t know how she got home because she didn’t remember walking out of my office.
Her gaslighting and crying in my office and tantrum throwing over this one kid got so bad that I had to involve the superintendent, who had a meeting with her and I. The superintendent later told me not to offer her a contract for the following year. I didn’t get a chance to tell her that because when letters of intent were due, she put one in saying she was leaving. Darn. Didn’t get to tell her she couldn’t come back even if she wanted to. Of course, I planned my exit announcement strategically. Thanks to my “mentor”, I waited until everybody had turned in their letters of intent before announcing that I was leaving. That teacher went around telling everyone that she would have stayed had she known I was leaving. That was no surprise to me. I figured that would be the case, which is why I didn’t make my announcement until afterwards.
I can summarize that woman up in one sentence…she was a hateful bitch. Oh the shit she talked about me behind my back. She was definitely on my list of reasons why I had to leave. I mean, knowing she wasn’t coming back didn’t make me want to reconsider my own position on leaving.
So, seeing her last night was not on my bingo card for this week. I’m glad it didn’t give me anxiety though. I’m glad it pissed me off. I had been feeling kind of mellow lately. I was almost feeling like I’m done with tattoos now for a while (after my next appointment). I was feeling “meh” about any more. But now, after seeing that woman, I want all the ink on all my body parts, lol! Funny how that works. I did take one of my as-needed anxiety meds last night before bed just so I could ensure I’d sleep through the night and not lie awake thinking about it. I did successfully get some good sleep.
But, even though I handled it well, I’d still like to have the winning Powerball numbers so I don’t have to “handle” anything else like this in the future. Just because I can doesn’t mean I want to.
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