My mental health? Not great, I’ll be honest.
My life has been nonstop stress and go-go-go for months now.
Here’s a quick rundown of what my life has been like these past few months:
April 11 – Husband finds out he’s losing his job by June 30. He’s the bread winner, this is a big deal.
April 13 – I begin the miscarriage.
April 14, April 16 – ER trips for traumatic miscarriage
*after that, lots of grieving
*during this time, I’m still working and coaching full time, from 7-7pm M-F and then most Saturdays*
Beginning of May – find out about job possibility out of state. It’s a great gig for my husband but means I’d be giving up everything. Also, taking a huge pay cut.
Begin process of grieving the idea of leaving my golden school community and career, the place that brings me SO much joy
Middle of May – interview with new school. Very depressed about doing this because I didn’t want to leave my Colorado school community
End of May – tell my boss and coworkers I *might* be leaving but hope I’m not. I cried a lot doing this
Beginning of June – trip to new state for husband’s potential job opportunity. It’s great! Decision made. We’re moving. That afternoon: house hunting + putting an offer on a house. Oh yeah, you read that right. On Friday, June 5, my husband officially got the job offer. I hung up from him telling me and called to officially accept the job I had interviewed for. He rushed home and we left for house hunting. 2 hours of house hunting later, we rushed for me to get fingerprinted before heading back to Colorado the next day. That night, we talked to our realtor and drafted an offer for the house.
June 11ish – I submitted my resignation email to my work. This sucks.
Oh, also during this week (June 10-June 14) I’m doing AP Spanish exam grading from home. This is a full time gig, 8 hours a day for all 5 days this week. And this week I’m dealing with a million phone calls and emails every day because we’re buying a house and scheduling inspectors and dealing with the lender and so much more. I had my first mental breakdown this week.
Oh, plus the morning after I submitted my resignation to the district, they locked me out of my email and account. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my students or swim team families. That sucked a lot. And they locked me out of my Google Drive. (Panic !!!!) That had everything I had worked SO HARD on for two years for my AP Spanish class and Spanish 2, things I need for next year. So, I had to get in contact with a million people at the district to push for them to allow me access. Finally, a week later, they did.
June 17 – my birthday. What did we even do to celebrate? I didn’t feel much like celebrating with everything going on. But we did go out for a nice dinner.
June 18 – all morning/afternoon I’m on my computer downloading things from my school district Google Drive before I never get access to my work again
June 19-21 – using up the gifts I’ve gotten for spa treatments. Fun, but any scheduled obligations as I’m beginning to pack made me stressed. I had another mental breakdown this week.
**Reminder: during all of this, I’m still buying a house and navigating allll that that entails. AND, starting to pack up our apartment.
June 24-25 – cats to vet, say goodbye to our favorite and amazing amazing amazing vet + Connor gets a haircut (other scheduled obligations that stress me out during this extremely stressful and crunch time)
June 26 – pick up my mom from airport. Yay! She’s staying with the pets while my husband and I fly to Mexico for our family wedding.
June 26 @ 10pm – hurriedly pack our bags to leave for Mexico tomorrow morning
June 27-July 2 – Mexico. This is great! Navigating buying a house while we’re in Mexico too.
*My mom was amazing and helped pack up the apartment while we were gone. I’m forever grateful for her and her help.
July 3 – take mom back to airport / keep packing up apartment. SO MUCH TO DO.
July 4 – Connor leaves to new state to buy house. I’m left to finish packing up the rest of the apartment alone. This is a lot and I have another mental breakdown.
July 5 – finish packing apartment. Movers are late, don’t arrive until 3pm. Leave by 5pm. I RUSH to turn over keys to apartment complex, say goodbye to my newly-reconnected friend, and take all four animals in the car with me to leave for new state. It’s a long drive in the car in the dark in the mountains in the rain.
July 6 – get to house, yay! No furniture. Rush to get fingerprinted because I need it to get my teaching license in this state. I hope it clears in time !!! Then, furniture shopping.
July 8 – husband starts new job
July 9 – pressuring movers to give us SOME info on when they will arrive
July 10 – movers arrive! Things are broken.
July 11 – furniture arrives! But some of it is wrong. Deal with customer service for this. Some of the furniture doesn’t fit so we have to redesign the space.
July 12-now – unpacking house almost entirely by myself while my husband works all day. This is stressful and leads to more mental breakdowns. Managing home repair things (like the window repairs that took an entire day that I wasn’t expecting) and waiting for more furniture delivery. All on my own. This is a lot.
And, during all this, I’m dealing with new hire paperwork for my job, going to orientation, fixing and editing paperwork, it’s a lot. Finding out I’m teaching a new difficult class that will be a LOT this year, it’s a lot.
AND THEN, I was supposed to fly home for trial this week. And last week, the prosecutor called and said trial would likely be postponed. Okay….. so now that’s another unknown for when that will happen in the future.
AND, then I went to change my last name. I wanted to start the school year with a new name so I rushed to do it as soon as the prosecutor called me last week.
And this week? Probably going to set up my classroom (which will probably take me 40 hours in itself) and the house isn’t even barely half unpacked.
Plus, I don’t have a therapist right now. I have to establish a new one here and also probably wait until my insurance takes effect? So who knows how long that will be.
So, how am I doing? This. How would anyone be doing? I’m at maximum capacity and then some. And school starts in two weeks.
I don’t get a break and right now in my life, I need it more than ever.
This is a really, really, really, really hard time for me (and us) and it’s just so much. Like too much. It’s a lot. And I’m talking about it and sharing this because I don’t want to keep it a secret that life is really really hard and overwhelming right now.
This is so, so much.
Sarah's Story 