I loved teaching.

I also hated teaching.

Both statements are true, although neither one tells the whole story.

Recently, I made a list of the things I loved during my thirty years in the classroom and the guidance office—and the things I hated.

The “love” column was long.

I loved helping kids understand something that had once seemed unreachable. I loved opening their eyes to possibilities and helping them make plans for what might come after high school. I loved watching kids shine, beat the odds, lift one another up, and be their wonderfully silly selves.

I loved seeing great teaching and eager learning. I loved mentoring colleagues, solving problems, bringing families on board, and finding ways to make school feel a little more doable.

I loved being a fan in the stands and the audience—sports, bands, choirs, theater, quiz bowl, all of it. Give me some bleachers, a questionable concession-stand hot dog, and a kid doing something she didn’t know she could do, and I was in.

I loved fresh starts. New school years. New semesters. New marking periods. Heck, sometimes we just needed a new day.

And, of course, I loved Friday vibes. I am retired, not dead.

All of those things in the “love” column are true. I sincerely loved them.

But when I look back, they weren’t the things taking up most of the room in my head and heart.

My brain was far more interested in the “hate” column.

The Other Side of the List

I hated watching adults abdicate their responsibilities and place them in someone else’s lap. Often mine.

I hated rude parents, kids being cruel to one another, chronic complaining, wasted time, and the way learning sometimes seemed to fall to the bottom of the priority list.

I hated moving heaven and earth to make something work, only to hear, “Ope! I changed my mind.”

I hated the Facebook torch-and-pitchfork mentality that could take a complicated situation and turn it into a community-wide outrage festival before anyone had bothered to learn what actually happened.

I hated being blamed for things that were neither my fault nor within my power to fix—often by people who did not want to address their concerns with the male assistant principal or principal. Apparently, I looked like the customer-service counter for the entire building.

I hated trying to drag kids toward graduation – even when I understood some of the reasons why they had stopped pulling for themselves – while they planted both feet, grabbed the doorframe, and found every possible way to avoid success until the 11th (or 12th) hour.

Most of all, I hated that I could not turn my head off when I left school.

That was the part that cost me the most.

My Brain Preferred the Problems . . . Weird, Right?

I could have a meaningful conversation with a student, watch another one succeed at something she had worked toward for months, and laugh with a colleague until my stomach hurt.

Then I could spend the entire drive home replaying one irritating interaction with an angry parent.

The good moments were real. I appreciated them. But my brain rarely felt compelled to examine them from seventeen different angles while I was trying to fall asleep.

It never said:

“Remember how that kid’s face lit up today? Let’s replay that moment until 2:00 a.m.”

No. My brain preferred:

“What exactly did that parent mean by that email?”

“What should I have said?”

“What will I say next time?”

“How can I make them understand that this was not my fault?”

“Why am I the one dealing with this?”

And the ever-popular:

“I shouldn’t have to do this.”

I never stopped thinking about the things I hated. I reacted to them, replayed them, rehearsed responses to them, and tried to solve them long after I was in any position to do something useful.

I could not seem to lay them down.

Everything Felt Like Unfinished Business

Now that I understand more about thinking habits, I can see something I could not see clearly then:

The problem wasn’t that I failed to appreciate what I loved.

The problem was that my brain treated everything I hated as unfinished business.

The things I loved usually asked nothing more of me than to be present and enjoy them.

The things I hated felt like threats, injustices, conflicts, or problems waiting to be solved. They involved people who might be angry, children who might not succeed, responsibilities that might go unmet, and situations that felt deeply unfair.

My brain believed it was helping by keeping those things active.

If I kept thinking about the conversation, maybe I would find the perfect response.

If I kept worrying about the student, maybe I could prevent a bad outcome.

If I kept revisiting the injustice, maybe I could finally make it fair.

If I stayed mentally connected to the problem, maybe I would be prepared for whatever happened next.

Except much of this unfinished business involved other people’s behavior, choices, priorities, and opinions. No amount of thinking on my part could finish it.

That did not stop me from trying. I did not yet understand the difference between caring about a problem and carrying it with me everywhere I went.

The Habits That Made Me Good at My Job

Many of the thinking habits that made it hard to leave school at school also helped make me good at my job.

I noticed problems. I anticipated needs. I took responsibility. I thought ahead. I cared deeply about outcomes. If something needed to be done and no one else was doing it, I usually found a way.

Those qualities served my students and colleagues well.

They also made it very easy for my brain to believe that every problem belonged to me.

I had difficulty separating caring from carrying. 

Even when I started to recognize what I was doing to myself, I didn’t know how to redirect my brain.

I did not know how I could care about a student without mentally dragging that student’s situation around with me all evening.

I did not know how I could acknowledge someone’s anger without assuming it was my responsibility to make the anger disappear.

I did not know how I could recognize an injustice without conducting an imaginary courtroom trial in my head while unloading the dishwasher.

I thought staying mentally attached to a problem proved that I cared.

Mostly, it proved that I was exhausted.

What Might Have Been Different?

I cannot help wondering what might have changed if someone had helped me see these thinking habits more clearly.

Not because the rude parents weren’t rude. Some of them were breathtakingly committed to the craft.

Not because the unfair expectations were secretly fair.

Not because the time wasn’t wasted, the problems weren’t real, or everything would have improved if I had simply slapped on a positive attitude and practiced gratitude beside the teachers’ lounge coffee pot.

Some parts of the job were genuinely difficult. Some were unreasonable. Some needed to be challenged, changed, or handled with much stronger boundaries.

But what if I had learned that I could acknowledge a problem without giving it unlimited access to my mind?

What if I had known how to separate:

“This is happening”

from

“I must keep thinking about this until it is resolved”?

What if I had understood that mentally rehearsing the same conversation for the fortieth time was not preparation? It was rumination wearing a sensible cardigan and carrying an emotional support water bottle.

What if I had spent less energy arguing with people who were not actually in the room?

What if I had learned to ask:

“Is there something useful I can do about this right now?”

And if the answer was no:

“What would help me set it down for tonight?”

I don’t know whether learning those skills would have made me a better educator.

But I suspect they would have made me a happier one.

What Takes Up the Most Room for You?

If you have a love/hate relationship with teaching, try making your own list. 

On one side, write down what you genuinely love about the work.

On the other, write down what frustrates, angers, disappoints, or exhausts you.

Be honest. Nobody is going to collect your paper or ask you to turn your complaints into “opportunities for growth.” You are simply beginning to uncover thought patterns that have developed over time.

Then look beyond the length of each list and ask:

• Which column receives more of my attention outside school?
• Am I thinking toward useful actions, or am I traveling the same mental loops?
• Am I carrying responsibility that belongs to someone else?
• What am I afraid will happen if I stop thinking about this?

This is not about forcing yourself to think happy thoughts, pretending a broken system is fine, or becoming so resilient that everyone can continue piling things on you without consequence. 

Some problems require action, boundaries, hard conversations, or difficult decisions. Some deserve to make us angry.

And some need to be acknowledged, named, and left at school—even when they have the nerve to remain unresolved.

For me, putting something down requires more than telling myself to stop thinking about it. Sometimes I need a strategy. Here is a simple “put it down” ritual that can help you reclaim your evenings and weekends. Before you leave school—or before you go to bed—write down:

• What happened?
• What, if anything, belongs to me?
• What is the next useful action I can take?
• When will I take it?
• What am I choosing not to carry tonight?

You are not pretending the problem is solved. You are reminding your brain that it has been acknowledged, the part that belongs to you has a plan, and you do not have to keep working on it in your head.

To close for today and give you a chance to think about it, I’ll leave you with this: you are allowed to love teaching and hate parts of the job.

You are allowed to treasure the relationships and resent the demands.

You are allowed to be grateful for the growth, the wins, and the meaningful moments while also telling the truth about what the work has cost you.

The goal is not to make the “hate” column disappear.

Maybe the goal is to stop letting it take up all the room.

I loved a great deal about my career.

I only wish I had known sooner how to give those things more space in my head, my heart, and my life.

This is the work we do in The Teacher Restoration Room: noticing the thinking habits that keep school running long after the workday ends—and practicing ways to care deeply without carrying everything.