Denied!

I finally heard back from HR... and they denied my request for a year long leave of absence.

I have mixed emotions.

The first part of me is relief. Now there is no external pressure to come back to Brooklyn in a year. I think I'd like to be in Mexico for at least two year, possibly a lot longer... or forever. Now I won't feel any sort of urgency to come back. I won't feel like I'm letting anyone down if I decide not to come back in a year. I make my decision to leave and that's it. No more decisions to make about this job.

The second part of me is sadness. I've been at this job eleven years. I had never been at a job for more than eighteen months before! I've been happy here. I started here as an ambitious new graduate with lots of big plans. Now I'm a bit jaded and a lot tired. It's time to move on. But I'll be sad to say goodbye to the many wonderful teachers and families I've known here and the children I've watched grow up.

I thought the third part was fear, of letting go of the security of this safe job. But it's not true. I'm not afraid. I worry about how much harder another job will be when we come back, when (and if) my children are in this building and I'm working elswhere... but that sounds so far away that I'm not really worried about it yet. I can't worry about it.

I'll wait for August to send in my resignation letter because many of my colleagues were cheated out of their pro-rated summer salary (money withheld from their paychecks during the school year). Which is too bad because it means they can't post my job position until then, most likely, due to union rules. My medical director is my friend so I'll tell her informally this week though she is already expecting the news. Still, I wish for the clinic's sake that they could know officially now so they could hire someone fabulous to be my replacement, ready to start on September first.

Mexico, here we come!