Split Allegiences

I'm starting to feel torn.

I've been teaching for Liberty for 12 years, at North for the last two. And I love my job--love the students, the facilities, the program I built from scratch, my principal, my co-workers, the laptop I'm able to use. I feel comfortable and at home. It's a peaceful feeling. We've lived in Kearney for 8 years, and the girls are starting to be involved with things through the school district. This is where the difficulty lies.

Then days like today happen. All day long, in my pigtails with yellow hair ribbons, I am asked over and over again "Hey, are you going to the game tonight?" One of things I pride myself on is making connections with my students, building relationships with them. And they were horrified to find out that not only was I not going to the tailgate and the game, but that I was going to the RIVAL (gasp!) school's football game.

So I came home, washed the LN off my face, changed my hair ribbons, changed my shirt and headed to the Kearney game. Then the guilt started from the other side. "Why don't we go to more Kearney games? Why don't you teach for Kearney?" And then I start thinking about what it would be like to teach at Kearney, where I would know first-hand my daughter's teachers, where I would be in the building if they needed me, where I don't feel torn between two schools. I would teach with several people we currently go to church with; how fun would that be?

In less than two years, this decision will come up. The man whose job I would want at Kearney is retiring in no more than two years. Do I leave North, where it's comfortable and familiar and feels like home, to take a chance on the unknown? It would be beyond words difficult to leave North, to leave students and co-workers and family behind, but it would be beyond words amazing to go to a football game where the players/cheerleaders/band members are not only my students, but my daughter's friends. 

There are pro's and con's, of course. A pretty significant one would be the pay cut I would have to take. But at some point, the intangible's can outweigh the material aspects. And there's a million variables--the most important one is that I might not even get an interview or be offered the job. Then all this thinking and contemplating is for naught.

No doubt this is not a decision I am going to make lightly. No doubt this is a decision that will be weighing on me until the moment it comes.