I am going back to work part-time this fall. I am so thankful that my superintendent is allowing me to do this.
All summer I have been wearing scarves on my head or just going bald around the house. I decided to wear my wig when I go back to school because I think it will be a little easier for the students. I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable especially if they have experienced cancer in their own lives and not had very good outcomes.
This week it was back to work for the teachers so I decided to give the wig a try and see how it would go. Not too bad. I put the wig on before we woke the boys up Tuesday morning. Jack was a bit perplexed. He kept looking at me real closely trying to take it all in. Xander also looked at me a little funny. First day back we had meetings all day, but the wig didn't stay on all day. It started to rain as I was leaving one building and the down poured as I arrived at my building. I didn't want to deal with a snarly wig so I just took it off and wore a scarf the rest of the day.
Wednesday was the big test. I wore it from 7:00 am until 6:00. Long day! For the most part it was great! Not as itchy as I expected and some people said they didn't realize it was a wig. So that was pretty nice. But it still feels kind of weird. At some points I thought I was wearing a hat and went to take it off and remembered it was my wig. Another weird thing is when the hair would fly around and get in my mouth. Toward the end of the day my classroom got pretty hot and it was weird to have the hair on my neck stick to me. It feels different than real hair. That's for sure. For the most part it wasn't bad, but on Thursday I just wore a scarf.
This week teachers officially worked three days which were pretty much filled with meetings. But they were long days for me. In fact I didn't even make it through the whole day today. I had to go to my parents and take a nap before I even trusted myself to drive all the way home. That was a bit of a reality check for me. Some days I feel like I can take on the world, and that was pretty much how I felt Tuesday, but by Wednesday night after the open house I was pretty exhausted. Then today was pretty bad. My back was killing me again and I was pretty run down. It was confirmation that I am not ready for full time yet. But I am so ready to be back and meet my next group of students. I am so excited to be teaching math and social studies, my two favorite subjects! Then I get to go home and be with my boys and-let's be honest-probably take naps.