As a child I watched my mom teach and was eager to help grade papers and cut laminating. Putting marks on the pile of slightly wrinkled papers with a fresh red pen was a favorite activity, then I would move onto sliding my scissors through the sheets of lamination. I loved how smoothly it slid, and always wanted more.

This was the beginning, I was going to be a teacher. My bedroom turned into a classroom complete with whiteboard, chalk board, and bulletin boards. I taught the neighbors anything that I could think of, gave out worksheets, and started a neighborhood newspaper that we would sell for .10 a copy.

If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, without hesitation,” I want to be a teacher. “

As a teenager, I started teaching swim lessons, I loved it and was good. My list of clients along with my paycheck grew every year, to the point that at the age of 18 there was a waiting list to get me to teach your child how to swim.

The path seemed clear and easy.

I marched through college, and eagerly filled out job applications for all over the east coast. I didn’t care where I had to go, I was going to teach.

It turned out that I didn’t have to move. I was hired at a high school 20 min away from where my husband and I were living. The dream was coming true.I was 22, fresh out of college, and just landed a high school art teaching job, exactly what I wanted… or so I thought.

Each year seemed less and less like a dream . I was confused. I’m one of those people that is bubbling over with ideas, but I don’t just get ideas, I love to put them into action, and I don’t mean in few months, I mean I want to have an idea, and see it begin to come to life a few seconds later, a quality that I was often rewarded for, and that usually served me well in my 22 years of life. Suddenly this desire to put ideas into action was getting me called to the principals office on a regular basis.

I began to expect that shortly after I had an crazy brainstorm, one so strong that I just couldn’t hold myself back, that I would get an email from my boss with a subject line that read “ see me” the body of the email blank.

This left me constantly confused, until finally during a meeting my boss asked me to have a few less goals. Seriously, you’re telling me that I’m doing too much……… Well this never happened to me before.

Never fear, a few weeks later I marched into his office with the longest list of goals I’d ever submitted, at that point he asked if was on a creativity kick. This again left me confused. I responded, “ you do know that you just paid for me to get my masters in creativity studies, right?”

The battle continued, until I became physically sick, until tears flowed, and I was so angry that I wanted to hurt someone ( not really, I’m a big fan of nonviolence) .

I retreated.

I stopped with the goals, stopped with the ideas, stopped with the action, and put all of my energy into my own creative business. Soon I was cranking out scarves like a machine.

Seven years…. seven years of learning that the job I dreamed of as child didn’t exist, at least not in the way that thought it would. Seven years of watching the school system kill the exact thing that I was trying to teach. Seven years of being stifled, put down, pushed down. seven years… that seemed like enough.

I looked at my students and wanted to cry.

In that moment, I knew it was over. the dream was crushed, the doors were closed and it was time to leave

I gave myself permission to leave, the weight lifted, it was easier to breath. I gave myself permission to grow.