It all started innocently, at some event that I can't even remember. People were introducing themselves, talking about what they did for a living, and of course someone asked me what I did.
I was fresh off a rather uncomfortable ending to teaching at a middle school in a large urban district. I was rather disillusioned with the education "industry" at the time, and so I responded, "I'm a recovering teacher." The other person gave me a quizzical look until I explained I had been teaching middle school, and then he nodded in relative understanding.
That became my go-to phrase, since at the time I hadn't decided exactly what I was going to move on to. Today it is still true to an extent, even though I am once again teaching - but I am recovering from the sour taste that episode left, I am recovering from some of my disillusionment (not yet all), and I am recovering from feeling that I had no direction in life. So I argue that makes me a recovering teacher, although not in the same sense I originally used the term.
These days I teach a little, write a little, edit a little, do some photography, and more or less get by. I am still working on where I want to go in this world, but at least things seem to be coming into some sort of focus. And I am finally beginning to use this blog, which I created several years ago just to hold on to the Recovering Teacher name. I still have not completely decided the direction it will take, but maybe it is just all part of the recovery process.
Just another step on that long journey called life.
