How do I say goodbye when I can't leave yet?

After 9 years in education, I've decided to leave it to someone else to do the work. If there is someone out there who wants to take this on in its current form. I don't want to leave the kids to this broken system, but I've decided to leave before I get sicker. 

I believe in public education in principle. But there are so many ways to be a human child, and right now, we have embraced what one of my colleagues once called "the batch processing of children."

So I have 37 days left. I'm not a countdown person...I generally see it as negating the journey. But I am counting down now. And yet, I'm still wrapped up in the stress of getting all the lessons ready, the fixing of problems, the working of 11-hour days, the Saturdays spent in the classroom. I need to start saying goodbye. I need to start freeing myself from something that is not sustainable.

So, I'll say goodbye to a few things I likely won't be doing again. Bittersweet.

Goodbye to parent-teacher conferences, where I learn about families' financial challenges, dreams for their children, medical conditions, dynamics between divorced parents and current work schedules.

Goodbye to the holiday gift project. 

Goodbye to the joy of reading a new hardback picture book to the class. ("Can I read that when you're done?")

Goodbye to not drinking water until the kids leave. Leaving the room to go pee is not an option.

Goodbye to the 5-minute lunch and the "lunch I forgot to eat."

Goodbye to trying to look graceful and teach a deep math concept to 24 people while one of them is screaming and hitting his head on the desk.

Goodbye to looking around and realizing we are all finally sitting in the same circle, and at last only one person is talking, and everyone else is actually listening to that one person. After 7 months.

Goodbye to the same questions every year ("How old are you?" "What is your favorite color?" "Are you a duck or a beaver?" "Do you believe in God?" "Do you believe in ghosts?" "Are you married?").

Goodbye to Expo marker and Sharpie and Flair pen marks all over my Target clothes.

Goodbye to hearing my name 100 times a day. 

Goodbye to handwritten cards that say "You're the best techer ever." 

Goodbye to not being able to do what I came here to do for all of you and to not being able to do what they expect me to do for all of you, which are in some ways very different things.

What made me happy to be alive today?

Smells of beef stew, from a real cow from a real farm, made by husband.

Harris School in Summer Lake, Oregon.
One of the schoolhouses I am going to visit this summer.

Sleeping just a little longer while husband walked the doggy.

Regaining my strength after being sick for so long.

Seeing an old friend and learning that all is well in his life.

Buying a big cork board for my beautiful new map of Oregon that is going to track all the old schoolhouses I've visited and am going to visit.

Eating a chicken soup lunch. It was the fourth meal I'd gotten out of the two big jars of homemade soup my neighbor brought over when she found out I was sick.