What do you specialize in?

There’s a deadline approaching, for the …possible me?

For the past few days I have been contemplating if I should complete the process of redoing my CDA. and then my Director’s. For my CDA, I would have to work/volunteer with a school or some sort of agency that will allow me to be there for 80 hours, and then verify all my documents stating that I have completed everything and pay for the application fee. Which, is about 1/6th of the price of what it is now, and subject to increase.

My goal would be to complete 80 hours, and then work applying for a Assistant Director’s position, and then a Director of a school. That is where I’ll see if I want to have my own in-home daycare.

A part of me knows I want a challenge – “a problem to solve” when it comes to work. To say that all my items I have checked off my to-do list has been done, and even better – that I am making a difference and improving the future one moment at a time.

It’s a trend I do have in my career history – where I leave the current place I am at, and I go to work in the childcare industry. But something is wrong there. The classes are too full, burnout by the first week – it’s not you, it’s the amount of people around and things that need to get done. You feel like you can never “catch a break” or even get a break. The system is broken. And led by many people who have no clue how to lead a handful of leaders, and they themselves don’t even know how they got there. Just one day, someone came up to them and asked them to help and step in. Whether they were properly fit to lead a pack of leaders, or even had the desire to take on any of the many extra responsibilities that come with directing a team. It’s just a “whoops, I forgot about that!” But somehow it goes on and on for years, and then your resume shows the expansion of years and “dedication” you have put in, and another desperate school gets another desperate leader. I speak from seeing this from experience.

In America, while we have 6-8 round table interviews and tests for individuals to become a corporate manager or leader, that take months to make the final decision, on the other hand we have a fifteen minute phone call to see if you’re qualified to lead a team of leaders who are teaching, guiding, and nurturing 100+ members of our future. Where the hours invested of time is more and the pay is about 1/3rd if not less the amount someone sitting at a corporate desk. Besides all those differences and the anger that can rage from here, there’s more of another form of anger that rages. The one that actually started this journey, that restarted up this journey back in 2018. This “call to action”, if you will.

In 2018 is actually when I started the process of obtaining my CDA, and then my director’s and I got back into teaching. Taught at a terrible school that was SO money hungry, it was so sad to see. And then I moved onto an Aftercare program – where yet again another person who was in charge of about 1,000 or so students, 3-5 locations, and I truly believe just continued her way up the ladder every time a position opened up.  For the six months that I was there, it was a constant sign of running around without knowing what to do, and did not want to change anything that was going on to improve any conditions or situations going on there. It felt like I was not only fighting the fires alone, but then the others would create more fires that I was not prepared to handle. At one point I had to call it quits. It felt like I was “giving them what they want”, since they saw their jobs as just going in and dealing with what came around and not being able to do or change anything. Because they were unprepared, always wanting to fight or arguing with anyone who wanted to help. But they never saw that as help. They saw change as destruction and they themselves were fighting their own change. They thought if someone saw their pain and struggle and dedication to what already is, and were never taught how to actually do the job right or better ,that they would be given the opportunity to relax and enjoy their day’s work. But no one ever did. No one ever showed them how to be rescued from the fires, they were only showed how to fight the fires. And were told that fires started all the time, and to run away when they smelled smoke. Or wait for the fires to put themselves out. When it was my last day, I spoke to the person who was suppose to work alongside me, co-creators of this environment, and she broke down her rudeness, anger, judgement, and wall of character – to tell me that she too wanted to quit. That she wanted to leave, never really liked working in the childcare industry, and only did it for free/discounted childcare for her son. And when I told her I she could go and apply where I did, she said she couldn’t cause her schedule worked well for her kid. She had dreams of being a baker and having her own bakery. I spoke and told her the ways she could do that and her life could look like so much more. Better and different. But she refused the change.

I left that job to work in customer service – making double what I did there. I told myself I was just going to “sit there until I figured it out”. That was the late December of 2018..I ended up getting multiple promotions – hating almost every day of that job, didn’t know how to get “unstuck” from there, and didn’t leave until mid-2023.

I’ve contemplated so much over those years. I never did “figure it out”. But what I am seeing more of now, is that the same rage of wanting to help the youth and “starting from the beginning” to help others become better people is an idea I think could help me. Help me feel better – if you just educate people early on, then maybe they won’t learn to hate so much later on. And that we won’t be so greedy, or so angry, or whatever it is that makes us make decisions that pulls families apart, takes away opportunities of learning, being, and doing for others who are different than us. The deep rooted pain of “why can’t we all just get along?” is a constant feeling in this fire that has been created around us, and I just want to see peace.

And then I think – what if I’m only doing it for the struggle? That, just like my past coworker, maybe I didn’t really want to do this. And I did it just to keep the peace. To bring the peace, say the right things to hopefully create better outcomes. And that right there just felt good. So I continued to do it over and over and over again.

How do we know we are doing it because we actually enjoy the process, and not just there for the familiar struggle to bring out an outcome for someone else? A constant “what can I do for you?”

I still don’t know.

What I do know, is that yesterday I got really angry again. Watching the news, hearing what happens, and angry that I can’t do anything about it. I can’t save everyone. And I can’t put those families back together. And some may never get brought back together. Or maybe not for years. And I know those are those people’s things they need to go through – for whatever reason.

And another career I took on was working in a salon doing hair and make-up. And just thinking about doing hair and makeup during these times just gets me even more mad. Makes me want to push clients aside, put on my combat uniform, and go to war. Boots. on. the. Ground. My anger wants me to be a hero. But..then what? Cause even soldiers get tired too.

Yesterday I was about to do a Yoga session to feel better, but then my dog had other plans and we watched Oprah with a guest named Ocean. He wrote a book. Wrote multiple books. But this one Oprah chose to speak about. He spoke about language, and the power of language and he spoke about his mother who worked in a nail salon and how the people in the room of that nail salon would have conversation, and how that changed him as well. He ended up being a professor.

It’s interesting how we see ourselves within other people. I just have done this my whole like. Possibly why I change careers or change styles, or so forth. I continue to grow with each person that leaves an impression on me. Honestly, bad or good. But the good is the one that I strive for.

So, am I a stylist? A teacher? A writer? A director? Could I be all these things, all at the same time? The answer is yes. We are constantly influencing each other, actually way more than our own actions influence ourselves. Is that what we are meant to do though in this world?

At the end of all of this, I still don’t know how to answer my question. Should I complete the process of renewing my CDA? Then Direct, and then go from there? At this exact moment, I can’t make any major changes. I would just need to focus…nahh, I need to explore.  To give these opportunities a try.