It’s hard out there for a freelancer.

Writing has never exactly been a lucrative career path, and recent years have seen it get considerably worse, rather than better. Already catastrophically underpaid, freelance writers (and, indeed, freelancers of all stripes) are being squeezed by shrinking markets as potential venues close their doors or are sold for scrap by venture capital, economic uncertainty leads clients to tighten their belts, and the vaporous claims of the “AI” bubble yield bad decisions aplenty. Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to go up and up.

I am far from immune to these troubles. I’ve been a full-time freelancer for more than a dozen years, but these days, the money I make from my writing struggles to make ends meet. So, I have started looking for alternative forms of income, be that additional freelance clients, part time work, or even a regular 9-to-5 type job.

When I first began this search, several people I know told me the same thing: “You should be a substitute teacher!” Honestly, I had never considered this as an option, because I had assumed that substitute teachers required the same kind of teaching licenses as full-time teachers.

Once I learned that this was not, in fact, the case, being a substitute did appear to be a pretty elegant solution to my problem. Substitutes are in high demand, I more than meet the minimum requirements, and I could bend my work schedule around freelance projects and other considerations in a way that almost no other type of job would allow. Plus, while the idea of “giving back” to the community has become a cliche, in recent years, I have been seeking ways to become more involved in my local community, and this seemed to fit the bill.

So, I began the legwork and, as of a couple of weeks ago, I officially completed my orientation and became a substitute teacher. As a reminder that I would probably have as much available work as I could handle, my phone had begun to ring with sub opportunities before I even arrived home from orientation.

I didn’t begin right away, however. I had already committed to volunteering as a poll worker, which is an exhausting, 14-hour day, so I didn’t want to pull down a sub job on either side of that. Other considerations also put the prospect off for a while, so it was not until yesterday that I took on my first sub assignment, teaching (or, perhaps more accurately, “teaching”) an afternoon of third grade.

As first days go, it was exhausting (kids are a lot, and being thrust into a situation where you have no idea what you’re doing takes quite a bit out of you) but also rewarding. School has changed a lot since I was in third grade, I think mostly for the better. The faculty was extremely welcoming and helpful, kids were pretty sweet and well-behaved, and one of them told me that I was a good guest teacher, which was nice.

I don’t know yet how well I’ll take to the life of a substitute, but I do know that I experienced an unexpected feeling of pride when, at orientation, my supervisor informed us that we were teachers now. Though it’s unfortunate to have to resort to corporate buzz words, it really did feel like a paradigm shift.

Being a teacher is not so much a career as it is a vocation. Like being a writer, once you’re a teacher, you never really stop being one, even if you stop teaching. Am I a teacher now? I’m not sure, but it feels like maybe I am, and that feeling is nice.

Many years ago, Tyler Unsell (one of the people who was most insistent and supportive in my becoming a sub) sort of press-ganged me into co-hosting the Horror Pod Class, which we’ve been doing together ever since. As you might be able to guess by its name, the Horror Pod Class was originally started by two teachers to discuss how horror films could be used in the classroom.

Once I took over as Tyler’s co-host, I would often joke that he was the teacher, I was just a writer. But as of last month’s episode, I realized that the Horror Pod Class is, in fact, hosted by two teachers once again.

That was a nice feeling, too.