A Small Sense of Discomfort... The Sequel

A sense of discomfort is not something that must be resolved.
It always appears...“in order to choose again”the choices you are making now.

In the end, I continued working as an art instructor for four years.
That might seem short to some people.
By societal standards, there was a path of stability if I had just kept going, and some might say, "It's a waste to let that go."

But. For me.
I think those days of struggle were so long that they were unlike anything else in my life since.

What was wrong, or what didn't fit,
I didn't know at the time.
I was just desperate, and I think I was doing the best I could with the resources I had back then.

But,my body was definitely giving me signs.
For one thing, I started catching colds more easily.

I thought they were just colds,
and I tried to avoid taking time off as much as possible.

Teaching in a noisy classroom.
As a result of continuing to use a loud voice that I didn't really want to use, I lost my voice twice.

In the end, a doctor told me,
“If you continue any longer, there is a possibility that you will lose your voice completely.”
I was told.

When I heard those words, I simply thought,
“I should stop pushing myself to speak loudly when I have a cold.” That was about as far as my thinking went.

But every year, when winter came, I was overcome with a gloomy feeling: would I be doing this again next year...?
However, because of my past experience of being rejected in many job interviews, and out of guilt toward my parents who paid for my tuition, I couldn't easily make the decision to quit.

...

And so,
I somehow managed to keep going while
deceiving my own feelings... the winter of my fourth year.
Talk of permanent employment had also started to emerge faintly.

“Myself standing in the same place next year, and the year after that”

An unchanging environment
An unchanging sense of tension
An unchanging role

A future where that just continues on calmly.
The moment I imagined a future where I would continue to face the same things...

Something like a strong rejection welled up from deep within my body.

I've reached my limit... I can no longer be the version of myself that is correct for someone else.
Even if I'm thought of as a failure... I'm done with this...

Looking back now, I wonder why I was so afraid to quit?...

“Quitting the 'proper' version of myself.”

For the me of that time, I don't think there was a scarier choice than that.