What is in store for my future?

I can't keep ignoring the feeling that I'm not in the right profession. I guess everyone doubts their career choice once in a while, but every day?

I always dreamed about being a teacher. When I was a kid I would come home from school, line my stuffed animals and cabbage patch kids up on my bed, and reteach them what I learned in school that day. Every once in a while I could convince my sister, three years my senior, to be my student as well but that was a rare occasion. I had a chalk board and passed out imaginary papers. As I got older, the game stopped but my love of school continued. I would help classmates and tutor underclassmen. When I was in Austria, I worked for a company that taught adult English classes. I would spend hours in the office planning my lessons. When I returned to the States, I was excited to enter the teaching program at Montclair, even if it meant I would graduate two years later than anticipated.

I finally entered the program and ironically hated almost every second of it. There were only a couple of classes I actually found useful. I was placed for my student teaching, and although it wasn't the district I would have chosen, it was the grade level I wanted --high school. I learned to love the school despite my apprehensions and I loved the kids even more. When I graduated I hoped to return as a teacher but they had a hiring freeze. Instead, I sent my resume to about 3 dozen districts and got a call back from one-- the middle school in my childhood hometown.

Four years, three supervisors, approximately five hundred students, and two schools later, I can't say that I hate my job. There are days where I absolutely love it. The kids can be huge pains in the butt but when they open up to you, confide in you, explain their fears and dreams, you can't help but love every second. But I would be lying if I said I didn't dream of the day where I find another path. I am emotionally and mentally drained everyday. I wake up and hope that it's the weekend. I fall asleep as early as 8:00 pm. I want a vacation immediately after one finishes. This is not the life I want to live. I recently said that I only live 2 days a week. I want a job that is more fulfilling, and although most people would say that there is no job more fulfilling than teaching the future of America, I beg to differ. The job may be fulfilling to some, but not to me. My fulfillment is what is important to me. That may sound incredibly selfish but at the end of my life I don't want to look back on all the lives I've changed. I want to look back on the life I lived.