I'm in higher ed, so if your friends were in k12, their experience may have been a lot more difficult than mine. I LOVED being at home for myself, but my position was pretty much 100% student facing, and my students really struggled with that modality. The job itself was a lot harder, but remained incredibly challenging even when we came back in person, as our students seem to be facing a lot more barriers after losing so much during remote learning.

I considered leaving higher ed altogether, but recently moved into a new position (QCC to WSU) and I think that change was enough to keep me happy and in the field. My new role is not 100% student facing, which took some of the emotional labor out of the job and that helped a lot! The challenges students face are the same, but I am in a different role and have different responsibilities to try to problem solve. I was at QCC for almost 11 years, so I think I just needed a change overall, too. There's a lot more nuance to it with my specific roles, but I won't get into all of that.