Last night I resigned.

I’m done. I threw in the towel. And, strangely enough, it feels pretty good.

The funny thing is, I actually liked my job. Not necessarily this job, in its current bizarre incarnation, but the actual job I signed up to do. I liked teaching. I liked working with kids. I liked creating lessons. I liked those moments when a student suddenly understood something, or got interested in something, or just stopped staring at me like I was an obstacle standing between them and lunch. There was a reason I chose teaching as a second career.

Unfortunately, at some point the job I liked became a smaller and smaller part of the job I actually had. What remained was the dysfunction.

The uncertainty over where I would be working. The uncertainty over how long I would be working there. The possibility of being moved every month or two. And finally, the announcement that I was being sent to some bizarre assignment almost as far from my house as one can travel while still technically remaining in Chicago.

Three hours a day in the car. For what? Nobody could really explain.

That, of course, was almost beside the point. The way it was handled was simply another example of how seemingly everything is handled.

Eventually I realized I was in an abusive relationship. Sure, there were some good times. And the paychecks were nice. Really nice, actually. Let’s not pretend I won’t miss those. But eventually you have to stop saying, “Maybe they’ll change.” They’re not going to change.

So I packed my metaphorical suitcase and left CPS.

I don’t know what’s next. That sentence is as scary as it once might’ve been in my life.

With the exception of a few years when I was transitioning careers and staying home with my kids, I’ve worked since middle school.  Since then, I’ve almost always known what came next. School led to a job. A job led to law school. Law school led to being a lawyer. Eventually, law led to teaching.

There was always a next thing.

This time there isn’t.

I can’t really say I’m retired. But I also can’t really say I’m not retired.

Maybe I’m retired for a month. Maybe six months. Maybe forever.

Maybe there’s a third career out there waiting for me.

But keeping with my relationship metaphor, I’m never going to meet the right one if I insist on staying with the bad one.

So, for once in my life, I’m going to see what happens.

I have some ideas. I’d like to volunteer. I’d like to get involved helping adaptive athletes. I’d like to find some game nights and meet some new people. Maybe one of those things will turn into a job. Maybe something completely unexpected will turn into a job. Maybe nothing will. That’s okay too.

Because I already have plenty to do.

For starters, my travel calendar somehow looks considerably busier than that of someone who supposedly has nowhere to be.

Labor Day in Wisconsin. Boston in October. Ohio and South Carolina in November. Ohio again in December. Skiing in Utah in January. A West Coast hockey trip in February- three games, three arenas. Skiing in Banff in March.

And that’s just what I’ve booked so far. Apparently unemployment requires a surprising amount of travel.

When I’m home, I’ll practice guitar. I’ll strength train. I’ll train for triathlons. I’ll read. I’ll cook. I’ll volunteer. I’ll kayak while it’s warm and ski when it’s snowy. And maybe, occasionally, I’ll do absolutely nothing.

I’m going to have to practice that one.

Mostly, though, I’m going to enjoy my life. That’s it. That’s the goal.

Not necessarily for the rest of my life. I’m not making any grand declarations about what I will or won’t do six months from now. For the next few days, weeks, months – or maybe years – I’m just going to enjoy myself and see what unfolds.

I’m letting go of the idea that I need to fight everything. For roughly 30 years, my professional life has been divided between two systems that desperately need people willing to fight to make them better: criminal justice and public education.

I fought. Sometimes I even won. I helped some people. I hope I made things a little better for a few of them. I know there are students I helped. I know there are clients I helped. There are probably some people I helped without ever knowing it. And there are plenty of battles I lost.

For years I’ve felt a little like Sisyphus, pushing that damn rock up the hill, watching it roll back down, muttering a few obscenities, and then getting behind it again.

Well, somebody else can grab the rock. I’ve done my shift. That doesn’t mean I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t mean the problems aren’t important. It just means I’ve finally accepted that I don’t have to fix them myself.

Someone else can fight that fight.

I can walk away with my head held high.

I showed up.

I cared.

I tried.

For 30 years, I pushed.

That’s enough. So I’m throwing in the towel. I’m putting down the rock. I’m walking away from the fight.

And for however much time I have left – whether that’s 30 years or considerably less – I’m going to try something radically different.

I’m going to enjoy it.

I have a print hanging on the wall next to my bed that says: (the one in this post)

What if it all works out?

I see it when I wake up in the morning and again when I go to bed at night. It’s basically twice-daily cognitive behavioral therapy via home décor.

Like a lot of people, I have a pretty healthy negativity bias. Give me an uncertain situation, and I can immediately come up with seventeen different ways it might end badly. What I rarely do is ask the equally plausible question:

What if it all works out?

Which is odd, because I have approximately 60 years of evidence suggesting that it usually does.

Not that everything has gone the way I wanted. Of course it hasn’t. Bad things have happened. Plans have fallen apart. I’ve made mistakes. Other people have made mistakes that I then got to enjoy. But I’ve survived all of it. Sometimes I’ve learned something. Sometimes I’ve changed direction. Sometimes I’ve just said, “Well, that sucked,” and moved on.

But somehow, every new uncertainty arrives, and my brain says, This could be the one! This could be the catastrophe we’ve been preparing for!

My latest example: my job.

After weeks of uncertainty following my layoff, late Monday I finally learned where CPS was assigning me. It’s technically a 30-to-60-day assignment unless the principal asks me to stay. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll probably rotate somewhere else every month or two.

When I saw the school, my immediate reaction wasn’t, “What if this is great?”

Of course not.

I thought it was going to be a rough school. I assumed I’d spend every day as a substitute, bouncing from classroom to classroom. I wondered whether I should just quit.

My brain went straight to Worst Case Scenario Theater, where apparently I have season tickets.

My wife suggested that perhaps I should actually go to the school before deciding it was terrible. I believe her exact wording may have been slightly less gentle than that. At the time, I interpreted this as an appalling lack of support.

Unfortunately, as happens far too often for my liking, she was right.

So Tuesday morning I showed up.

And everyone was nice.

I met administrators and teachers. I sat through professional development. People welcomed me. More importantly, I learned they didn’t want me to spend my days randomly substituting. Instead, they assigned me classes to co-teach.

The next day I helped with orientation, met more people, learned my way around the building, and got an even better feel for the place.

And now?

I’m actually excited about being there.

I’m still going to give it the 30 days before making any declarations, but at the moment I can absolutely see myself asking to stay for the year.

Once again:

What if it all works out?

Because it did.

And all that worrying accomplished exactly nothing.

Actually, in some ways this assignment may be better than my old job. I have three classes instead of five. I’m co-teaching, so I don’t have to do all the lesson planning or grading. I have five free periods during the day, which is almost absurd. I’ll probably get bored, but I recognize that “I have too much free time at my full-salary teaching job” is not going to generate much sympathy.

And because I’m technically a short-term reassigned teacher, I’m probably not going to be handed a bunch of long-term projects or extra responsibilities.

Three classes. No grading. No lesson planning. Five free periods.

I may have accidentally stumbled into the greatest teaching job in America.

There is a part of me that still wishes I had a permanent position. I like working. I like feeling productive. I like being part of a team and having something that feels like mine. In fact, I may ask around and see if another teacher wants some help for a period or two. Five free periods might eventually cause me to start wandering the halls asking strangers, “Anybody need anything laminated?”

But that’s a pretty good problem to have.

A few days ago, I was imagining all the ways this assignment could be awful.

Today, I’m thinking it might be pretty great.

That’s why the print stays next to my bed.

I’m apparently a slow learner.

But twice a day, I get the reminder:

What if it all works out?