By Alex Shafer
I worked for over a year to get a student teaching placement abroad, only to be forced to travel home, internationally, after fewer than 2 weeks.
To be honest, I felt safer where I was in France than I do here. I am angry that I was made to travel in the midst of a panic, when there were options that could have been discussed later. I am devestated that this student teaching placement was ripped away. I’m glad I am safe but I am absolutely crushed to be home.
I am grateful to have made it through quarantine asymptomatic. I am grateful that my mom did the same. I am grateful I have a loving significant other to return home to. I am grateful I don’t have to worry about rent or food or potential healthcare bills.
I am scared because this isn’t over. I am scared about what this means for the teaching profession, my profession. I am scared of the risk of still getting sick, or worse. I am scared of the possibility of a police state. I am scared of things returning to “normal”. I feel like everything that is happening now totally changes the things I have spent 5 years preparing for. Where can I live? Where can I work? How can I know?
In the midst of feeling guilted to express gratitude for my privelage, I feel unable to express my anxieties and fears. My own mental health has taken such a toll, this is the lowest I’ve been since before I started therapy and antidepressants. I don’t mean to diminish the far more significant struggles that others have, for shelter, for food, for their lives. But the pain I feel is still immense and I have nowhere to place it. It just exists, throbbing, like wound being ignored. But I’m afraid that acknowledging it makes me a bad person.