Mental flush

Someone I know used to tell me that I need to learn to flush the crap out of my head and let it be gone. Don’t let it keep bothering me. This is much harder to do than I like. The older I get, the more I’m convinced I need to do it, and just let it go.

I’ve not been given to grudges in my life. I don’t particularly hold them. There are some people, however, who I would as soon never have anything to do with ever again. Occasionally I think of them and feel my blood pressure rising. Luckily, I think of them less and less frequently, and I’m slowly–if not forgiving–I am forgetting them. I’m remembering that they have no impact on me. They are not important. Their opinions, their past actions, their voices–none of that matters now. I handled them the best that I could at the time, and while hindsight always offers woulda coulda shoulda moments, on the whole, I am happy with my integrity and honor intact.

That said, someone posted something today that really peeved me. It had to do with what happened with the last teaching gig and I realized I wasn’t over with the way things played out and the ways some people behaved. I have and had no control over them, only myself. But this brought up terrible doubts. I live with imposter syndrome anyhow, and so I fell today into an awful funk about whether or not I am a good teacher. I miss teaching, I miss students, and so this was particularly painful to me, especially since in so many ways, that was my dream job.

I am not over it. But I have decided that I am letting someone else have too much control over me. I’m letting him into my head rent free. I have to decide to let it go. It’s in the past. Stewing about it will change nothing. Worry and regret are useless things. I have to believe in myself. That’s an extraordinarily tough thing to do sometimes. Especially right now with the end of the book fighting back tooth and nail.

To let it go, I have to deliberately cut ties. One of the reasons I saw what this persona said, was because he had followed me on FB and his post came up in my feed. I have unfriended him. I am considering how many others I need to unfriend. I have to resist temptation to go checking in on what they might be saying. I have to resist thinking about them at all. I have to deliberately turn my mind away from those thoughts whenever they come up. This post, will hopefully be the last of it.

I chose to write this post because I think I needed some sort of personal closure. Or maybe I needed to write down instructions to myself to move along and quit wallowing in the woulda coulda shouldas. I needed to acknowledge that I feel hurt and angry, but I have to acknowledge that I don’t need to. I can kick the squatters out of my head.

So as of right now, that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to have some self-discipline about staying on the positive road. I’m not going to let the bastards grind me down.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

5 Comments

  • Raquel Gulley

    Personally I think you would make the best teacher, and I’m glad you are going to stay on the positive side of things. You did the right thing unfriending him, he deserved it for being a rud little brat.

  • Denisetwin

    Unfriend is your friend. I deliberately keep my friends list very low in number, and even then some of them I have clicked do not follow so I don’t see their day to day posts. I am a worrier and I know it. I don’t need or want the extra anxiety. The past, ugh, I totally sympathize on the looking back. Happens to me too, as I get older I’ve gotten better about forcing myself to think of other things but it’s hard. Best advice really is to just insist to yourself you will not think about it. If the thought crosses your mind, don’t dwell, don’t analyze, don’t go back through the situation, just think nope, not going there and find something else to occupy your mind, radio, book, cooking, something. Hugs!!!

    • Di Francis

      Someone yesterday helped me realize/remember that he isn’t the first student I’ve had who deliberately undermined me and tried to screw with the class. The difference this time was that I didn’t have the support of my boss and that ended up being the real problem. Previously, I was able to take the student up the chain to have others straighten him out (and yeah, inevitably it’s been a male student) and once I was told that I should have kicked the student out of class by the second day with his behavior.

  • Suzie O'Connell

    I can personally attest to the fact that you are a GREAT teacher. Even after all these years (has it really been a damned DECADE already?!), I still refer to you as my mentor. You had THAT kind of impact on me, and I will be forever grateful.

%d bloggers like this: