I am writing this on my last day as a middle school public educator, and while I am feeling nostalgic, I have never felt more reassured with my choice. I handed my resignation letter in more than a month before the end of the school year. It was always in the back of my mind. The snowball effect of difficult situations that led me to the conclusion to resign is not all that important, but let’s just say that I was dealing with an enormously difficult assignment which was the tipping point. Writing my resignation letter was one of the easiest tasks all year. The hard part was handing it in. Initiating the conversation with my boss was difficult, and I was surprised that when I told her, I felt a lump in my throat: I was choking back tears.

So you may be asking why would I quit if I was on the verge of tears? If you are about to cry, it is clearly a sign of caring, right? Were these near-tears ones of regret? No. They were of loss – of the realization that I was letting go of a career I once felt passion for. It took me a while to pinpoint what kept me in this career for five years, but I now understand why.