Swim.

I teach in one of the lowest-paid districts in one of the lowest paid states in one of the lowest paid professions in America. And because you could easily look up my salary (or that of any other school teacher) online, I will just go ahead and tell you my statistics:

* 10 years of college education

* 15 years in my profession 

* I have a Master's +50 

* I hold 5 different certifications

* And I still make less than $60,000 a year

* (a huge chunk of that goes toward union dues and pension)

The other day, a friend and I were heading down to Oktoberfest and stopped by an ATM for cash. I tried to withdraw $40 and received a notice: Insufficient funds. It was humiliating. But it was also more than humiliating: it was soul-crushing.

There's this bone-wearying discouragement that comes from constantly checking my bank account and credit card statements, hoping for money to somehow magically appear. I do what I can: I work somewhere else on the weekends; I coach after school for the stipend; I sub for other sick teachers on my plan hour for the extra thirty bucks. 

I'm just tired.

If I'd spent my entire career in Hazelwood, I would be a lot farther along, but you lose years when you transfer districts. The administrative upheaval was killing me there, and the salary is killing me here. I overlooked one very important factor when I switched districts--

Every other teacher I knew who transferred from HSD to FZ had a husband and his income to balance the loss.

It is soul-crushing to be unable to support yourself, by yourself, as a single woman. Especially when your job is to teach single young women to be independent and strong and self-sufficient.

I feel like I went wrong somewhere, but I don't know at which juncture it happened. I did the right things: I went to college and worked my way through. I won lots of scholarships. I worked my way through graduate school. I got a job in a stable profession where I thought maybe I could do something that mattered. I bought a house. And now I can't afford to live?

It seems insane to me that teacher salary varies so wildly from district to district, just within a city. The cost of living is the same, but 5 miles up the road, the teachers are paid $15,000 a year more. Could I try to get a job there? Yes. But then I would lose years again, so I would end up in the same boat.

It's a catch-22 and I don't know how to get out of it. Surely, there are other single women who own homes and are also teachers. Maybe they never took the salary cut from switching districts? I don't know. It feels like drowning. I need some pieces of advice or something.