MY ESCAPE

This will be my place to tell the story of how I escaped from teaching and my crazy idea to find life again through art. Just a tiny bit of background first. I knew my job was literally killing me, if you didn't already know this, teaching is one of the most stressful jobs there is, but add being a high school special education teacher to that and wow, no amount of yoga, eating right etc could save me. Since NCLB, special education has become solely focused on test taking, every decision made by the district centered around raising the test scores of the students with special needs, yes they have to take the tests right along with everyone else with only a very few exceptions. No one talked about what was best for the students any more and this was so in conflict with what I knew was right for my students that it was deeply effecting me. I had to get out before it was too late. A trip to the emergency room with astronomically high blood pressure and loss of vision was the wake up call, I was done, nothing was worth my life and health, not money, not getting to retirement age, nothing. Eleven years ago I almost died, heart failure, kidney failure, eyeball failure, not good... all brought on by major stress. I recovered but never came back 100%, the time wasn't right for quitting teaching, my kids were still young, I needed my job so I kept at it for 11 more years until it became unbearable and I was headed back to everything-inside-of-me-failure again. Last fall I took some of my accumulated sick leave, walked 6-8 miles a day, meditated, put myself on a strict diet and supplement regimen and tired to learn to relax, still working on that one. Then I realized as long as I was still tied to my teaching job, even though I wasn't there, I had a burden of negativity that was still overwhelming me. I did the most drastic thing I have done in my life, I resigned.
So, right now I am in the process of completely changing my life, I have big decisions to make but one of them has already been made, I will never set foot in a school again.
I'm starting a business online called "The Sacred Bead" with gorgeous antique, vintage and my own designer rosaries. I just created an Etsy store with my own handmade heirloom rosaries, necklaces and will be adding beads and some art too, called "thesacredbead2" so check it out. Links to them are on the sidebar. And I am creating art! First photo is a detail of a small experimental painting with texture created using joint compound. Last photo is one of my rosaries that can be found on Etsy and my website The Sacred Bead. I made this one with a beautiful bronze Caravaca Crucifix, hand carved olive wood and incredibly beautiful Kingman turquoise.