#NerdsUnite: Around the world with @HeatherReusz
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Heather. She's a nerd who is currently living in Japan by way of Chicago. Yep, talk about a culture shock. She's here today to talk about her life, love (which she is currently balancing long distance) and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT HEATHER!!!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @HeatherReusz
When we last left off, I was just finishing up my first year of teaching. It was not the most positive experience.
The second year just got worse. I was hit with a couple of personal blows as well as a professional one. One personal setback was that my friend and I had to move. We were living in her dad’s old place rent free and he wanted to finally sell the place after having not lived there for 3 years. He only gave us about one month notice to pack up and leave so he could start showing the place. I had to move back in with my parents who lived almost an hour away from my school. I stayed there for a month constantly looking for a new place. I lived out of boxes as my sister had rearranged the old room we used to share so none of my things could fit. It was a stressful couple of months. I just remember feeling so pressed to find a new place and unwelcome in what used to be my home. I finally did find a great new place with a perfect location and fantastic rent. Still, it created an interesting dynamic for a couple of months.
The other personal blow I thought I was prepared for. My boyfriend is an absolutely amazing artist. He wanted to follow his passion and study for a semester in Florence, Italy. I supported this one hundred percent and thought it was an amazing opportunity. I hadn’t realized how much over the past couple of years he had become my rock. I felt so lost without him. It was almost as though I had lost my center. I hated myself for it. I never wanted to be that girl who was so hopelessly in love that she was lost without her man. Yet there I was writing him lengthy Facebook messages and e-mails every day.
I started to convince myself that I was acting this way because he was “the one”, the person I’m supposed to be with for the rest of my life. Now, something to note, I don’t actually believe in this. I’ve never adhered to the belief that there is only one perfect person who could complete you. Almost every guy I have had a serious relationship with I could have imagined marrying. Basically, I started getting super clingy and would just sob over Skype to him about how much I wanted him to come back so we could start planning a future together. Perhaps understandably, he started to get a little freaked out by this. We had never talked about anything like this before and while he was out of the country was not the best time to start discussing it. He started to push me away but that made me just want to cling and hang on tighter. He started to ignore my desperate messages and roll his eyes at my talk of getting married as soon as he graduated. He has also admitted that he was acting a bit like a douche bag during this time in our relationship. I knew the way we were acting was out of character. I just felt so hopeless and out of synch with everything and he was the one person I could depend on to listen and be there for me. And here I was, watching myself messing it all up. It was temporary insanity, I swear.
Besides having the anxiety from moving and my relationship, work was becoming a hostile environment. I thought things would be easier for me throughout the second year but everything was much more stressful. About three months into the school year, he targeted me for some classic workplace bullying by someone else in the building. He would come into my room for maybe thirty seconds and then immediately shoot me an e-mail nit picking everything that I was doing and I do mean everything. I also distinctly remember him coming in and ripping me a part the day after my great aunt had died. Yes, he was right; my teaching was not the best that day. I was a little distracted and upset. Even with this explained, he made some kind of comment about how my personal life should never interfere with work anyway.
He labeled me as a struggling and ineffective teacher. I know I’m not the best teacher in the business but I felt that was a bit harsh. I started to ask other colleagues to come in and observe to see if they saw the same things and to help give me suggestions. Almost all of them saw nothing that would warrant me being labeled as an ineffective teacher. Some of my friends in the art department even went so far as to tell me that they thought I was a great teacher who took the time to connect with and teach every student. I took all their suggestions all the time reporting back to this person to prove that I was trying to make progress. Nothing was quite good enough though.
I started to feel hopeless. Everything seemed to be broken. I just wasn’t happy anymore. I knew I needed a career change to feel like my cheery self again. Problem was the practical side of me could not let this job go. I had a full time job and my own place; things which any of my college friend would kill for. I had it all but it all felt wrong and enslaving. This wasn’t the life I wanted. This wasn’t the person I wanted to be.
Something my boyfriend said slapped me out of my funk. One day, while he was rolling his eyes as I was sobbing about how trapped and stressed I felt, he just sighed out “You’re 23 years old, Heather. Why can’t you just take control of your life and do what you want?” I paused. He’s right, I thought. Why was I doing this to myself? I needed to take control. But I had no idea where to even start that. I just wanted a break away from everything. I sat and tried to think of something I had always wanted to do, an adventure I dreamed of. The first thing that popped into my head was teaching in a foreign country, especially Japan. I did a quick google search and immediately found at least ten companies that specialized in teaching English in Japan. I noticed the first company had an interview in Chicago in three weeks. I applied that not determined to do something to change the way my life was going.
When I told my family and friends that I had applied, they were all super supportive and wished me the best of luck. I went to the interview, was offered a position, and here I am today! I can definitely say it was an amazing life decision. I love my life here! I finally feel like myself after two years of being lost and trapped. It is the best feeling in the world.