There’s a particular kind of tired that comes after a decision where every option hurt someone. You made the call, and you didn’t make it lightly. You still can’t put it down, because being right and feeling okay are not the same thing.
This is the part of the job no one prepares you for.
Not the workload, the weight.
The exclusion that protects two hundred kids and undoes one family. The staffing call that balances a budget and lands on someone you respect. There was never a clean answer, only the least-bad one, and you were the only person who could carry it.
Here’s what I see in the principals I work with. They don’t lie awake because they got it wrong. They lie awake because they care, and because they’re holding the whole cost of it on their own.
The weight is the job. Carrying it alone is not.
So this week, the question isn’t “did I get it right.” It’s “have I told anyone the truth about how heavy that was.”
If the honest answer is no one, sit with that. Then pick one person who could be that for you, and find a way to say it out loud, even if all you can get out is “today was heavy and I haven’t put it down yet.”
✨ Always in your corner,
Aimee