Not a Wasted Word

I took my car to get serviced at the dealership near the giant Target and the mall today. I was actually kind of excited to have a couple-hour stretch to kill at both places. But quickly I realized I didn’t actually want to spend several hours at Target and the mall.

It’s so weird how sometimes I’m really in the mood to hit up Target and get a few things. And sometimes I’m really… not. I thought that since I’m about to do a bunch of traveling I’d find quite a bit to put in my basket but I didn’t. I just couldn’t think of anything I, or my kids, wanted.

Still manage to spend $80 though.

I had to walk up to the mall a weird way and I passed this Starbucks that looks like a bank. It wonder if it was a bank but Starbucks took it over.

At the mall I was surprised that the Macy’s was still open. I swore it had closed, but a woman at the door told me it the Macy’s at Stonestown that closed. I guess I confused them.

I have my book and my reading glasses and I found a spot to sit that is away from the foot traffic. I guess I’ll start reading. I have to kill another hour before I can walk back down to the dealership.

Written on Tuesday afternoon, and evening.

I got some bummer news from work yesterday and I was very sulky about it. I cried a lot and then walked around pouting. After my daughter and I watched Stranger Things (while my husband and son watched the Warriors game), I took a sleep aid and went to bed.

Today I had a meeting with my admins about the bummer news. It was basically them telling me “in person” all “the reasons” for the bummer news, which is that I have to teach one class of a grade level and subject matter that I am not at all interested in teaching. Honestly the news wouldn’t have been such a bummer last year, it would have been expected really, but after this year, and the huge popularity of the Spanish program, I was really hoping the years of doing this shit were behind me. But it turns out they are not, because we are a small middle school in a small district and scheduling restraints will always hamper the growth of my Spanish program. It’s that reality that is really what is getting me down. I’m trying to just be okay with it, but I’m giving myself a couple days to feel down about it first.

Yesterday I had two appointments and I went to Costco in between them. Today I had nothing after the 9am zoom call with my admins. I puttered around the house. I applied for a new credit card because I’ve been wanting to change mine and my current card was used fraudulently so it was cancelled. If I have to change the number everywhere anyway, I might as well change it to the new card (my old card was an Amazon VISA – which I know is the worst). My new card comes later this week. I also changed our NYT subscription so we only get it delivered on Sundays, not Friday – Sunday. I even set up my voicemail! (My husband has been hounding me to do this for months but I hate voicemail so I had no personal incentive to call customer service to get a new pin). I did a little light debris-clearing in some of the more problematic areas of the house and wrote a list of tasks I want to complete in the next few weeks. But I didn’t let myself start on any of that because I figured I was due one day off to chill out. Turns out I’m horrible at chilling out, and instead drove my husband crazy texting him dumb shit all day.

Not having a credit card that works made it impossible to shop online, so thank god for that.

I did read some of my book, but I found it hard to concentrate on it. And I’m writing this post, so that is something!

I’m going to the dojo tonight for class and I’m (probably overly) enthusiastic to see other adults later today.

Both kids are liking their camps, but it sure is hard to get them out the door in the mornings. The 12yo especially is not interested in the “this feels like school, but it’s summer!” morning routine. They are pretty much in camp or traveling all summer, which is exactly what I need. Our two weeks of Covid isolation was a great reminder that staying home for extended periods is not actually good for anyone.

UPDATE: My admins called me at 4pm saying I don’t have to teach 4th grade next year. I think it’s because I didn’t want to teach zero period if I had to teach 4th graders at 6th period. So now I’m teaching zero period and 8th graders at 6th period, with two other 7/8 Spanish classes and a 6th grade Spanish class during the day. It’s what I originally wanted, and I can’t believe I’m going to get it.

I still really can’t believe it.

Thursday I said goodbye to my 21-22 students for the last time. Friday I finished clearing out my room for the summer deep clean. I am now officially done with the school year.

Saturday I took four 12 year olds to Great America’s water park and then back to my parents’ house for a sleep over. It was 89* on Saturday and the water park is only open on the weekends so was totally crazy – just absolutely packed in a way I’ve never seen before. The girls still had a good time, but it was definitely a little much. They arrived at my parents’ house totally wiped so at least that mission was accomplished.

Sunday morning we were all up around 9am (I actually fell back asleep – which never happens – I guess I was wiped out too!) The girls played some Minecraft, had breakfast, packed up and we went home. I had everyone dropped off by 1pm.

We walked Sunday Streets with the kids but it was almost over by then and there wasn’t much to do. It was still nice to get out.

Both kids were totally done by Sunday evening. My son had spent the night at my ILs house (because my husband had a memorial concert to attend) and he didn’t sleep great. Both kids were asleep by 9:30pm.

It’s hard to remember that I’m actually on summer break. It’s been go, go go! for so many weeks that my body and mind are struggling to slow down. And maybe that’s for the best because I only have two weeks before the madness that is our summer travel begins. We just added an impromptu final trip to the summer (an opportunity came up that we couldn’t refuse), and honestly I think it will be a bit much, but it will also be awesome. As my husband said earlier, we will endure all these vacations!

So these two weeks are basically all I have to get some shit done, because any other time will be the weeks (or just days!) in between trips. I do want the house in good shape before we start the summer insanity, so I guess that is what I’ll be working on.

But today is appointment day. I have my allergy shot and an eye exam. I also need to see the chiropractor and hopefully and acupuncturist. I really hope I can get this lower back pain under control before all this travel starts, but somehow I doubt it.

I don’t know why it took me so long to figure that out. I guess the idea that a virus would give me back pain just never entered my mind.

But my first 48 hours I had “body aches” which felt a lot like menstrual cramps and were focused mostly in my back. I laid on a hot water bottle for two days trying to alleviate the pain.

But then it went away. And now I guess it’s back. I haven’t done enough “research” into whether or not I should expect it to be a lingering issue. I’m sure said “research” will be inconclusive anyway.

But did you know that lower back pain is one of the most commonly reported symptoms of omicron? I did not.

So yeah. Just wanted to put that out there. Evidently if your stuffy nose and scratchy throat is accompanied by back pain – most commonly reported initially as similar to menstrual cramps or GI pain – you probably should take a rapid test.

I think I’ll try to find an acupuncturist to see if they can help…

But first, a PSA to parents: If your student is reporting troubling issues in a class, direct them to speak to the teacher about the issues themselves. Then, if they decide the issues are not being resolved after bringing them to the attention of the teacher, email or call the teacher yourself. Finally, if the issues persists, email or call the administration. DO NOT SKIP STEPS 1 AND 2! Emailing admin about how a teacher is not managing a problem for your child that they may not even know exists will probably hinder resolution of said problem, not aid it.

As you may have guessed, I had to deal with some bullshit at work this Monday that just sucked. It really devastated me mentally and emotionally at the start of the week and I’m still recovering. Also, parents can really, really suck. Not being a parent who sucks in this way is one of my most salient goals.

Yesterday my daughter turned 12. This was also an emotionally fraught moment for me, which I handled less well because of Monday’s continued fall out. I love my daughter and am so proud of the young woman she is becoming. But the fact that I can use the phrase “young woman she is becoming” about my first born is really messing with me.

On a related note I saw some photos of myself that reminded me I do NOT look like I did in my early 30s anymore. I think something inside me really believes I do, and it filters input on how I look (reflections or photos) to match that belief. But sometimes the filter takes a moment to update and I really see what I look like now and it’s startling. I’m starting to believe that I do not look like what I think I look like most of the time.

{This is filter is even more pronounced for my parents – sometimes I really see them and recognize just how much older they are than what I perceive and it’s very troubling.}

On another related note, my eye sight has gotten so, so bad. I desperately need to get a new prescription, but I’m worried the optometrist will try to sell me on progressives and I’m not sure I can handle those. Right now I wear reading glasses clipped into my pre-pandemic glasses to read or use the computer at home and I just don’t wear anything otherwise. At work I can barely see my computer and can’t read a lot of other things. I need to try something new but I’ve had so many total busts when it comes to my eyes and eye sight (contacts were a disaster for me, the negative affects of which I’m still dealing with) that I don’t anticipate actually being able to solve the problem.

Sleep is still elusive and does not seem to help me manage exhaustion in the ways it’s supposed to. There are so many days I can just not fall asleep even though my body and mind are wiped out. And most of the time if I do get to bed at a decent hour I wake up at an ungodly one. Sometimes (like last night) both happen! I couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight and I was awake by 5:30am! I tried to fall back asleep for half an hour but finally just started writing this post on my phone.

{Productivity gurus who talk about manipulating sleep patterns (taking naps, or just going to bed early) must not have any issues with their sleep. Or at least they never seem to address the possibility of sleep issues in their work. I never had sleep issues before – they seem to be a fun side effect of perimenopause. Who knows if they will ever resolve themselves. If my mom’s experience is any indication, probably not.}

Finally, my body is handling stress less well, and I recognizing that managing chronic pain will almost certainly be a future requirement, one I will fail miserably at. I returned to the dojo last Wednesday and while all the kicking I enjoyed did not trigger my periformas syndrome like I thought it would, it did trigger lower back pain – which I have miraculously never had before in my life. So now I’m dealing with my first week of lower back pain and I lets just say I’m not managing it with much grace.

And I just changed the title of this post from “random thoughts at the end of the school year” to “thoughts on aging” because that’s what this whole post (minus the first paragraph) ended up being about! I suppose it’s been on my mind more than I realized lately. And I suppose when it affects pretty much every aspect of your life, it’s hard to ignore.

How do you feel about aging these days? Are any aspects of it more salient than others?

Last week kind of sucked. There was a lot of getting too much done in too little time. There was a lot of feeling in the weeds and overwhelmed. There was a lot of remembering things last minute and scrambling to get them done. There was a lot of plans changing and feeling disappointment about those changes.

But in the end, the house got cleaned (which ended up being totally unnecessary) and my daughter was very happy with her family birthday party. She felt celebrated, was happy to have her cousins there, and loved all her presents. In her eyes it was a big hit, and that is all that matters.

I had a slightly different experience, and I’m processing that.

During the week I realized that we’ve fallen back into a pattern where I am responsible for more than I can manage, and (in my mind) more than my husband is doing. I think this is partly because, when my husband is doing a lot of cooking, duties at home feel much more evenly dispersed. But when he stops cooking regularly (because, say, he got Covid and felt really shitty), none of my responsibilities get picked up by him. We can order out and he doesn’t have to cook, but there is no outsourcing the laundry. And even when he’s not cooking, we split the dishes pretty evenly, so I don’t even get to do less in the kitchen.

I also ended up taking on a lot of cat care duties after the (crazy expensive) vet visit, which is a new set of responsibilities for me. Finally, all of this was compounded by the fact that I’m the only one who actually cleans anything. My husband does pick up, and is better at it than I am, but he NEVER cleans anything. He doesn’t even wipe the kitchen counters after he clears them off. It’s like he doesn’t even see how gross things get (if the state of his toothbrush charging base doesn’t prove this to you, nothing could).

I kind of unloaded on him Friday afternoon, and it didn’t go great (shocking!). But later, when the dust from the family party settled, I recognized my error and took responsibility for my delivery. Saying things don’t feel manageable is not helpful, what I need to do is ask for help and be very specific about what kind of help I want/need. I need to present my “ask”.

A couple months ago, when my husband was packing our weekends with plans, I lamented the fact that I felt I could never stay for the sparring class on Saturday at the dojo. He immediately requested I clarify “my ask.” What do you want to change? How can we make this better?

It was actually really hard for me articulate what I wanted. I mean, what I wanted was for it to be possible for me to go to sparring sometimes because we just didn’t have anything else going on. But that wasn’t really an ask. It was just a desire. In the end I asked for two Saturdays a month at sparring. And until we got Covid, I was getting that.

So now I need to figure out what my ask is for tasks around the house. I don’t think my husband will be able to help me with the cleaning, he just won’t see what needs to be cleaned and I’m not super interested in teaching him how to clean stuff (I will absolutely have to teach him this stuff). I will probably ask him to do more dishes when he’s not cooking, and then I will ask that we look into a monthly house cleaner. If someone could just clean the kitchen and the bathrooms once a month that would be such a huge improvement.

Of course we have to see if we can afford it. Our son’s aftercare costs so, so much that this did not feel like a cost we could absorb last year. But we did get a much bigger tax return that we were expecting (it was something about our no longer being landlords and getting a big deduction for that this year), and I got a COL increase as well. So maybe we can make it work. I do think it would be a massive improvement for our family and if it were just the kitchen and two bathrooms we wouldn’t have to pick up the whole house when they come.

I am happy to report that this weekend was MUCH better than the week preceding it. I only have four more days with students, a bunch of 8th grade promotion activities, and then on Friday, after I turn in my end-of-year checklist, the school year is officially over!

It was a lovely day. We took the cable car to Ghirardelli Square. There was beautiful view from the cable car and incredible ice cream sundaes at the square.

We walked around the very touristy parts of the city before the little cousins went home and we hit up the Cartoon Art Museum. Then we took the bus all the way home.

I ran some errands in the afternoon. I now have purchased or ordered all my daughter’s birthday presents. That is a relief.

I also finished the summer fun photo book that I make for all the cousins and aunts and uncles that come to the farm in St. Louis. Shutterfly let me use two promos codes and I was able to order all seven copies of the 40 page photo book for $180! It usually costs me around $350 but the “extra pages” promo code was epic. I’m so pleased I ordered it and got such a great deal. This was the final silver lining of our COVID isolation, as I worked on the book while stuck at home. So glad it’s done and ordered!

Now come the final two weeks of the school year, with my daughter’s two birthday celebrations this coming Friday (family) and the following weekend (friends). Her birthday always falls in the middle of all the end of the school year chaos and it always makes me feel so totally overwhelmed.

I just need to get to June 12tb. Let the chaos commence!