I was better about containing it now because my students didn't wait for a slow-moving anxiety attack to pass. Choosing this profession meant learning how to cope in real time as I couldn't walk out on my class to ground myself or breathe through a tough moment. But containment and coping weren't the same as banishment. There were no miracle cures. Anxiety still chewed me up inside like a private tornado, often spinning and churning while I carried on instruction, conducted lab experiments, and talked students through their own crises.
My year-end evaluation with the school principal made for one hell of a tornado.
Seeing as I couldn't hide anything from Max and had long since stopped trying, he knew I was concerned about my eval meeting. He listened to me dissect the lesson I'd taught during my formal observation, when the principal sat in the back of my classroom and took notes on everything I did for fifty minutes. He allowed me to catalog all the ways I could've done better. He nodded along while I hypothesized about the feedback I'd receive in the debrief. But he drew the line when I started wondering out loud about not receiving a teaching contract for next year.
This frenzy wasn't without reason.
In all my years of teaching, this was the point when I'd learn I was being moved to a different grade, a different course, a different classroom, a different school in the district. It didn't matter whether I had a great year because teaching assignments were primarily influenced by teacher seniority, student enrollment, and budgets. Even if I was the greatest middle school science teacher in the entire world, money got the first and last vote in public education.
Things were different here at Bayside, considering this was an independent lab school and we didn't rely on local taxes to determine our annual budget. Some more differences: no seniority, no tenure, no traditional contracts with hard-fought layers of due process against termination on a whim. That—not me moving ninety minutes away—continued to be my mother's biggest hang-up about me teaching at Bayside.
She was an active member in her teacher's education association and had been for decades. She believed in salary scales, pension systems, and collective bargaining. She also believed I was making an enormous mistake by coming here and walking away from all of those employment protections. According to my mother, bopping around grades and courses and buildings was to be expected. I had to wait my turn. Eventually, I'd earn myself a spot that wasn't subject to last-in, first-out rules, and then I'd have everything I wanted. There was no sense wringing hands over it.
As if my hand-wringing ever made sense.
"I don't think there's ever been a teacher who didn't have their contract renewed at the end of their first year. A few decided they didn't want to return and I think Lauren appreciated them coming to that decision on their own but—"
"What if I'm supposed to come to that decision on my own?"
"You're not," he replied with more calm than I'd ever experienced in my life. "You're awesome. Everyone loves you. The kids say you're supportive but strict and they respect that. The middle school team would walk out in protest if you weren't renewed, and I bet the elementary teachers would follow too. You're good at this, Hayzer. Damn good. Knock off that defeated attitude because taking the field expecting to lose is the fastest way to make those dreams come true. Get your head in the game and plan to win, you hear me?"
I gave him a watery smile. "Thanks, Coach."
"Don't thank me," he replied, still in locker room pep talk mode. "Kick some ass and then you can thank me."
"I will," I promised.
As quick as a finger snap, he shifted back into my large, lovable bear, saying, "We'll need to celebrate. Maybe we should plan a weekend away before the summer season gets going and everything costs a thousand dollars a night. Maybe Mystic, down in Connecticut. Or somewhere on the coast of Maine. I know a fisherman up there. I bet he'd have some recommendations."
"Yeah," I said, swirling the straw in my green smoothie. Max always made a quip about me going green for science when I ordered this drink. He always had something warm and generous to say, always an inside joke or a funny little thing. "I'd like that."
My mother was wrong. Nothing about this was a mistake.
* * *
"So, Jory," Lauren started as she dropped into the seat across the table from me, "how has this year been for you?"
I laced my fingers together on the table, slowly bobbing my head in acknowledgment as I gathered the right response. Questions like these were akin to conspiracy theories—they made my brain extra twitchy as I tried to figure what they were really about and they made it impossible to separate the signal from the noise. It was too easy to answer the wrong way. The trick was replying in some general, factual manner and forcing the person asking to react.
This was one of the reasons why anxiety was so exhausting. Every thought was actually four thoughts. Or more.
After a pause, I said, "I've learned a lot here, and I know my students have learned as well."
Lauren's brows shot up and she studied me for a long, excruciating beat. "I'd say your students have excelled, Jory."
"Oh," I managed. "Thank you. For noticing."
"Couldn't miss it if I tried," she said. "This position is a demanding one. Three content areas to prep, students across three different grade levels, a middle school team loaded with strong personalities. All of that plus serving as the instructional model and resource for campus-wide inquiry-based science? If you've learned a lot this year, then it's fair to say we've also learned a lot. You've helped us align and transform science instruction at every grade level."
I blinked as my cheeks and neck heated.
