Not a Wasted Word

I’m still trying to figure out our new normal. It feels like all the adults have left the room, and they’re just throwing us bits and pieces of information that we need to interpret ourselves, instead of providing actual guidance. It’s disheartening. And frustrating.

I’m so curious to see what the messaging is from school – any school! – about all of this. It would be one thing if we had been back full time in the spring, like so many students and teachers were at the end of last year, but we weren’t. So now we’re going back full time, at full capacity, when students are way more likely to get sick, and I’m just dying to hear how they are framing it. So far, 1.5 weeks before SFUSD starts and two weeks before my district starts and it’s crickets.

So far the few sparse communications I’ve received (one as a staff member from our new superintendent and one from my daughter’s middle school) have doubled down on the promise to return full time in person (yay!) and reiterated the importance of students being back in school (also yay!). There has been NO MENTION of Delta or how much harder it will be to stifle the spread of this virus, even with mandatory masking. I’m so curious to hear what protocols will be used when a student tests positive, if entire classes will be put into quarantine or if they will just treat it as any other illness, with only the student staying home sick. Will the protocol be different if the student is vaccinated (at the middle school level all students in the 7th and 8th grade should be eligible (age wise) for vaccination). Inquiring minds want to know! And admins don’t want to open cans of worms before it’s absolutely necessary.

{My friend who is a teacher in a super small, but affluent district in the East Bay, said there would be no Covid-19 protocols except mask wearing at her school. No social distancing, no testing, and no quarantining of kids who were in direct contact with a student who tests positive. It’s basically business as usually but with masks on.}

I seem to be way more stressed out about everything than my friends are, and I’m realizing that moving forward, the pod we’ve been participating in might leave us behind to socialize in ways we no longer feel comfortable with. I don’t see us allowing indoor play dates or sleep overs once school starts (besides the 10 days at the KOA, we never actually did this), but I think I’m the only one who won’t be allowing that kind of socializing in our pandemic pod of four. The other families assume it’s only a matter of time before their kids get Covid and aren’t really interested in taking certain steps to stop that from happening anymore. It’s not like they have no boundaries, their boundaries are just different than ours are now, which means we won’t be able to participate in the pod anymore. At least not like we used to. That makes me really sad, but I don’t see myself being comfortable with my daughter being inside without a mask when her friends are going to different schools and mingling with dozens of different students. There is already so much risk of her getting sick from her own school, and at the very least I want to avoid the major disruption that a positive Covid test would mean for all of us.

I can’t believe this is happening – that after 17 months we’re being left behind by our pandemic pod because this thing is still not over, and our risk aversion no longer matches our peers. It’s surreal. And depressing. But there is nothing we can do but make the choices we feel comfortable with, and host in ways we feel comfortable with when that is possible.

At least the craziness of the current situation will help me not over-schedule. My son is signed up for soccer (outside) at his new school and will continue with Martial Arts (inside) and that already feels like WAY too much. I would pull him from MA for a while, but he’s been in the camp all summer and is now highly motivated to continue with a group of kids who are trying for their junior black belts. Since he’s relatively old (only has two more years before he’s in the “teen class” (at only 10! Why?!) pulling him for even six months would ruin his chances. So I don’t want to take that possibility from him, at least not while he’s so self-motivated. This is the first time a goal has been his idea, and I’m not ready to snatch that away. But with just those two activities he has three commitments a week! Luckily my daughter doesn’t want ANY commitments right now, she’s stressed enough about the start of middle school, and I am happy to oblige her until she’s vaccinated.

My mom came to school on Tuesday and helped me move my stuff to my new room. With her taking an extra wagon-full every time I made the trip we finished the vast majority of the move in one day. I couldn’t believe it. She saved me so much time! Unfortunately I can’t do too much with that extra time because the staff room is still, well a staff room full of staff room stuff. Yesterday I moved the rest of my junk and spent a fair amount of time just trying to figure out how to best configure the room. Today I plan to move enough staff room stuff around so that I can set up my desk (which I really struggled to place in the space – it’s weirdly configured for a classroom, because it wasn’t meant to be for teaching!)

There is so much I can’t control right now, so much I can’t even plan for yet. It makes things like my classroom, where I can tangibly control a small piece of my environment, feel that much more important.

Two weeks until students set foot on campus. Let the countdown begin.

This weekend I got my daughter’s room organized. I saved the worst for last, which in this case I think was the right move because by the time I started in her room I had a lot of practice in just dumping the stuff that doesn’t serve us. In fact, when my husband and daughter came in to help, they just slowed me down. Significantly. But in the end we did get it done! It’s such a weight off to have her room neat and organized.

Before

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After

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Yesterday I did get my own clothes sorted, and with that, the house is, officially, finished! There are still some spots I could focus on – I’m looking at you entry way closet and garage! – but the vast majority of the house has gotten at least a once over. I really can’t tell you how much better it feels to be here, and how happy I am that it got done. It feels like having a clean slate to start the new school year, which holds so many unknowns. Knowing the house is in good shape before we walk into the shit storm helps, it really does.

I read recently that anxiety is energy and if it’s channeled effectively it can be a force for good. This past week was absolutely an example of that for me. I tried so hard to just sit down and chill out, but I couldn’t. On Friday I tried to watch some TV, but I kept picking up my phone and doom scrolling through the same headlines and articles until I finally threw it across the couch. I just couldn’t sit there and watch TV. But once I pulled out all the plastic drawers in our kitchen and dumped their contents onto the floor to purge and sort, I could have something dumb on in the background. It felt like I was watching something, but I was also tackling a pain point. I’m sure I would benefit from some actual relaxation right now, before everything gets crazy, but if my anxiety won’t allow it then getting an organized, clutter-free house as a result is not the worst thing.

Today is my first day in my new classroom and I’m so eager to get started on it. I think the time I’ve spent on my house will help me unpack my classroom; I’m much more ruthless in determining what I actually need to keep. I want the time to make intentional decisions and I can do that if I have an adequate time, so I’m starting early and I’ll be going often. Our first official staff day – aka our first day of way-too-many meetings – is next Thursday. We’ll see what I can get done before then.

{I cannot figure out how to get the Daniel Craig SNL gif (referenced in the title) into this post so I’ll just link to it here. Boo.}

I went into the this weekend with lowered expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised!

Friday started rough. The news cycle about the super spreader event in Massachusetts, where tons of vaccinated people passed the virus on to other vaccinated people, really bummed me out. My anxiety spiked so high that I went out and got more CBD drops to help manage it. I have been taking CBD for a while, but when I ran out at the beginning of the summer I wasn’t in a big hurry to restock. On Friday morning, that apathy dissipated and I bought myself a new bottle. Three days later, I do think it’s helping.

Another thing that that helped was getting an email with the news that the basketball camp at my school ended last week so the migration of staff room stuff to the new space can begin soon. I’m going down tomorrow to help get everything from the old staff room to the new staff room, and then I can start bringing my stuff over. I am SO RELIEVED to have a timeline on moving my classroom.

The rest of Friday went well. I gave myself more than enough time to go to IKEA and run on Treasure Island, which means I had just enough time to do both (I’ve learned to add 30+ minutes to my estimation of how long something will take, which means I left for the East Bay a full hour before I thought I really needed to and that gave me exactly the time I needed. Living with ADHD strategies for the win!)

The sun was out on that side of the bay and it was so nice to be out running in it. But as I ran, I could see that my side of the city was mired in fog, and I realized that maybe people in less foggy parts of the city were having a completely different summer than I was, frustrated and bummed out in my fog bank. I feel like there is some deeper metaphor available here, about remembering that the fog might not cover the whole world like you think it does when you’re in it… but I’m too tired on Monday morning to come up with it.

Saturday morning started with breakfast in the backyard and Sunday evening ended with dinner there too, which I really think helped make the weekend bearable. The sunshine we got DEFINITELY helped. My kids were insistent on staying home all weekend. They’ve been so busy for the past month and they really wanted a full 48 hours to decompress. I am usually loathe to indulge this impulse because it almost always ends badly, but I did recognize how much they’ve been doing and I promised them they could stay home. And they did! We made them spend 2-3 hours in the backyard each day which I think was the key to making it work. In the past (this would have been pre-pandemic) when they asked for a weekend at home we didn’t utilize the backyard because it was an apocalyptic nightmare that gave me panic attacks at mere glance. Now that we’ve excavated the usable space, and have 16 months of practice being out there, it makes a “stay home all weekend” really doable. And again, I can’t stress how helpful the sunshine was each of these days. We didn’t get sunshine in our backyard all week, so two days of it was very much appreciated.

Saturday night I got to escape our self-imposed stay-at-home order to see my good friend who was in town unexpectedly (she was supposed to be at her parents’ cabin but ended up at her parents’ house). It was so nice to see her, and her kids, again after such a long hiatus. It also kept me from going crazy at home all weekend – I think I need to plan an escape for myself when my kids want to lounge around for two straight days.

I also got some stuff done, and I will write more about that tomorrow, because my husband was kind enough to move his work stuff upstairs today so I can go through my clothes downstairs, and he probably would be a little frustrated if I spent an hour writing a blog post.

It’s nice to know that, with a little sunshine, our kids can make it through 48 hours at home. I know we did this for weeks at a time at the start of the pandemic, but we relied a lot more heavily on screen time then. Now they can read, and play, and listen to podcasts, and do art projects to pass more of the time. I’ll definitely be more inclined to let them stay home like this in the future.

Oh, and the icing on the cake this weekend was that Sunday my rug came! I was not expecting that, so it was a very pleasant surprise. And I love it just as much as I was hoping to. It really does bring the room together.

How was your weekend?

I’m surprised how happy I am that it’s Friday today, but honestly I’m tired of the camp drop off and pick up routine. And I want a drink! I only drink on the weekends, which I think has helped make the weekends feel special during the pandemic.

And it definitely feels like we’re back in the pandemic again. I’m not really going to go into it, but it does feel like we’re basically back where we were before being vaccinated. I was never terrified of getting Covid myself – I was mostly worried about giving it to my kids – and now I’m right back in a place where I need to worry about that again. (But I don’t need to worry about my parents – which is a huge weight that remains lifted.) I’m coming to terms with it. I didn’t expect the fall to look or feel like this, but as long as we are in person I will be fine, or I will figure out how to be fine. I just need my kids and I to be back in our classrooms, and I’m going to consider that the most important win and cling to it.

I got some good stuff done yesterday. I went through my son’s room. I didn’t go through everything – I didn’t touch his book case and he has WAY too many books – but I did go through his toys and his desk and it’s very noticeable. I actually cull his toys somewhat frequently, but this was the first time I dumped them all on the floor and pulled a fair amount to give away and reorganized everything that stayed. He definitely still has WAY more than he needs but it’s a big improvement.

I didn’t get to my own clothes because my husband “bit off more than he could chew” with a new recipe and I never had time to get downstairs before kid bedtime. (He works downstairs during the day so it didn’t feel like a good time then either.) I told him I would find the time to get it done this weekend. It’s actually going to be a nice interlude (I’ll be downstairs and alone!) during a weekend where we’ve promised our kids they can just stay home (they always think they want to do this, and it always ends badly, but sometimes we just have to let them have what they think they want).

I did return the bras that I knew wouldn’t fit great. And I didn’t order them in another size! My rug never came (it’s in New Mexica! Waahhh!) and I’m doubting it will make it today, but a girl can dream. I really, REALLY hope this rug transforms my living room, where I have some nice teal accents on each wall that no one really notices because the super bright primary colors of the kid play mat on the ground are the only thing anyone can look at. I’m hoping the rug brings together all the other pieces and makes the room pop. I really wanted to paint that room (it’s next to the one I did paint so its shabby paint job is painfully apparent), but I never did so I’m hoping the rug will make it feel different. We spend a lot of time in that room and I’m REALLY tired of the play mat (my hope is this rug will go OVER the play mat, which is as physically comfortable as it is visually distracting).

I’m also hitting up IKEA to get a side table for the downstairs unit and some storage stuff for my closet. I’m on carpool duty for my daughter’s camp today so I already have to brave half the bridge traffic (it’s a sailing camp on Treasure Island which sits in the middle of the Bay Bridge), so I’m going to suck it up and attempt to make it all the way across. Then I’ll run on Treasure Island before I pick them up. It’s been miserably windy and foggy all week (at least where I live in the city) – I hope today we get a little bit of sun while I’m on my run. I’ve found that I am really negatively affected by the fog. After a straight week of it I just start to get really bummed out.

As I said before, we have no plans for the weekend. I need some ideas for Sunday when they start going crazy. I might bring them down to my school to start moving stuff out of my new classroom. They could ride their bikes on campus and play at the playground while I move stuff. I never heard back from anyone about that though so I’m not sure if I’d be stepping on anyone’s toes by doing that. I’m pretty sure the secretary and administrators start working again August 2nd. I should probably wait until then to get started, but the wait is truly driving me crazy.

Oh and I found some Clear Masks that I like. I haven’t ordered them yet because I can’t decide if I should pay an extra $20 (for 24 masks) for “medical grade” instead of “consumer” grade. The medical grade ones are $87 for 24 and the consumer grade are $64 for 24 so it’s not nothing. My husband says I should just get the better ones to feel safer – maybe once I read the data that spurred the recent mask-guideline-reversal by the CDC (I believe it’s coming out today) I won’t think twice about spending the extra money. (UPDATE: I just read a couple articles and yes I’ll be buying the medical grade masks).

I know this is a boring, “what I’m up to” post but it’s all I got in me right now. I still have so much anxiety about the upcoming school year, and while getting my house in order will absolutely be appreciated by my future self, right now it’s not making me calmer. I need to start tackling the issues that are causing the anxiety (::cough:: my classroom ::cough::) to start feeling better. I am writing notes about how I want to start the school year, which helps.

Honestly, I think I’m just a week ahead of everyone in obsessing about the start of school and I’m hoping that next week I’ll start getting emails from my school at least about first steps toward the fall. (Our first staff day is August 12, so I expect an email from work sometime next week.) I would also really appreciate communication from either of my kids’ schools, but I understand that it’s still early for that. Not everyone is as neurotic as I am – I’m sure a lot of people (teachers, parents and students!) do NOT want to be thinking about school starting yet. I wish I could stop thinking about it.

Maybe tonight when I get to have that drink!

What are you looking forward to this weekend?

Thank you all for your comments on Tuesday’s post. It was very validating to hear that others felt similarly, and that I am not alone. It was also good to just write out that post, and realize where my head is at, and why. Putting words to my anxiety really helped to contain it. I know now why I’ve been having such a hard time, and that is also a relief. I also know now there are some steps I can take to gain peace of mind, and there are some unknowns I will have to accept in order to move on. Everything feels more manageable now.

I confirmed earlier this week that my new classroom is no where near ready for me to start moving in. I emailed someone yesterday to see if I can help get the ball rolling, but I haven’t heard back yet. I keep telling myself that I will get it done, eventually. I’ll probably have to spend an entire weekend there, before school starts, but it will get done. And if my room doesn’t look the way I want it to when school starts, that will be okay too. If I can let go of my expectations and remember that perfection can be the enemy of the good, I should be okay.

Instead of moving into my new classroom, I’m focusing on my own home. This is hard because the easy stuff is done, and only the hard stuff (that I hate!) remains. I keep telling myself that one way I can take care of myself it to make my home a refuge from all the uncertainty outside it. I can make each room clean, quiet and welcoming. I can remove the clutter so that, at least in my own house, things feel calm and I feel in control. Knowing I want to achieve that for myself helps me stay motivated.

I did remove most of the clutter. I’ve also gone through most of the bag of that clutter. Yesterday I cleaned the floors. What I have not tackled yet is my own clothes (I really need to go through them all and get rid of stuff that no longer serves me), or my kids’ rooms. These are each big tasks. But the floors were a big task too and I got those done today. Today a new rug is supposed to come, a rug I’m excited about. I told myself I couldn’t take it out of the packaging until the floors were clean, and yesterday I cleaned the floors.

I realized while I was cleaning yesterday that I really hate it, especially cleaning the floors. I know no one loves to clean, but I really dislike it. Tidying up is gratifying at least – at the end things are more orderly. Sweeping is highly satisfying and if I notice I need to dust (it generally has to get pretty obvious for me to notice) then I’m pleased with the result. But cleaning my floors just does not deliver the ROI I require to actually get it done. I tend to spot clean the obvious blemishes on the floor, and I guess I’ve trained myself to ignore how dingy they must look after a while, because cleaning them (at least any floor that is not my kitchen floor – which requires a good steam cleaning at least once a month) just does nothing for me. I don’t feel satisfied afterward at all. If I can avoid the YMCA’s $630/mo aftercare program I think I’ll invest in a house cleaner. I really do think it’s time.

It’s been really hard to keep up the work on my house. I am getting rid of a lot – more than I expected – but it’s still slow going and everything I organize just reminds me of how much more I still need to tackle. My kids’ rooms are crazy, but I also think now would be a REALLY good time to go over them; after the last year and a half of being stuck at home we are acutely aware of what we use and what we don’t.

When I was packing my classroom in June I put the movie Wet Hot American Summer on the TV. One of my very favorite scenes came on, and I took a crude video of it with my phone. I’ve come back to it over and over this summer, because sometimes you really appreciate seeing someone act out how you feel.

When I was packing up my classroom I felt like both Paul Rudd and Janeane Garofalo. Internally I was having the tantrum, and simultaneously standing there incredulous, telling myself to just get it done. As the summer wears on, I feel myself converting to Paul Rudd completely – Janeane Garofalo is almost gone. But I need her back. I need someone to stand there next to my tantrumy self and tell her to just do it already.

Just get it done.

Today I plan to purge in my son’s room and sort through my own clothes. I think my clothes will be really satisfying to go through – most of my drawers have become unmanageable since the pandemic. I also want to clean out my closet and better use the floor space for storage. This is the first built in closet I’ve ever had as an adult and I’m always a little stunned at how much space is just sitting down there, unused. If you have any organizational tips for the bottom of a closet (a closet with only one rung so the floor space is very available) please share. I’m thinking of using the space for seasonal stuff I don’t need to access much – right now that stuff lives in my daughter’s closet and I’m tired of going back and forth, and only being able to access things when she is awake.

Do you ever feel like Paul Rudd in that clip? Or are you more like Janeane Garofalo?

So I realized something yesterday: I am really, really, REALLY anxious about the fall. Like I am overwhelmed by my anxiety about it. My desire to exert some control over a seemingly never ending parade of unknowns absolutely fueled my willingness to FINALLY get my house in order. It’s pushing me into my classroom three weeks before we start school. It’s compelling me to read every article published about the hyper-transmissible delta variant and its affects on children, and the possibility of breakthrough cases. It’s urging me to buy ALL THE MASKS that are on sale now, along with other back-to-school supplies we don’t need yet. It’s just there, driving basically every thought and action. I’m drowning in it.

The fact that I didn’t recognize that I was drawing from a deep well of anxiety about the fall in basically everything I was doing is… dispiriting. I’m going to need to be more aware, and honest with myself if I’m going to get through the next six months.

It’s understandable that I’m anxious about the school year. There are a lot of unknowns. My kids are starting at new schools where we aren’t familiar with the staffs or campuses or communities. That alone is a massive anxiety trigger for me – I’ve been at the same school for 18 years and my daughter was at her elementary school for six, and I was a really active parent there. Now both kids are going to schools that we don’t know anything about, and they are starting in a year where nothing is familiar to even the long time members of the community. Oh, and there is also a hyper transmissible virus lurking every where.

I’ve been teaching for almost two decades and I have no idea what next year will look like and it’s terrifying to me. I haven’t taught in my classroom since March 13, 2020. I don’t know what it’s like to try to make myself intelligible to 30+ students with a mask on. I don’t know how to teach Spanish with half my face covered, when it’s well accepted that seeing a speaker’s mouth is essential to language learning. I didn’t get to practice in person learning last spring when most of my colleagues did. I don’t know what I’m doing. It feels like I’m at the top of a hill in a go cart that’s glued together and someone’s about to push me down. It seems inevitable that I’m going to crash and burn.

My daughter is home sick again today, which is a reminder that they will probably both be home sick, on and off, all fall and into the winter. My husband has a lot more flexibility to stay home, but he is supposed to return to the office 2-3 days of the week starting in mid-September. How are we going to manage all these sick days? Our district never has enough subs in a normal year, they are sure to be very short next year when absences will be more common. How am I going to manage that?

I thought the fall was going to be better. I thought it was going to be easier. I thought we were coming out of the hard. But I’m realizing now that we’re not. The fall is going to be HARD. Really hard. Maybe even harder. I do think it will be better – ultimately I think my kids and I will be better off in our classrooms, despite all the complications being there will inevitably create – but I’m realizing that better doesn’t also mean easier. I thought things would be better BECAUSE they were easier, but I’m realizing they will be better DESPITE being harder. And I’m so tapped out from the past year and a half that I have no reserves to draw on. The summer has helped tremendously, but it’s can’t provide an endless wellspring to draw from. So I’m about to go into some more hard, when I’ve already been through a lot of hard. And I’m not sure how to do that.

And I will admit, I’m also not sure how to reconcile the apparent 180* we’re in the midst of maneuvering with respect to our risk tolerance around our kids getting Covid. We kept them so sheltered during the pandemic, only allowing them to socialize with a small, select group outside with masks on. And now, when they are three times more susceptible to getting sick, we’re fine with them sitting in classrooms with 20+ other kids we know nothing about. It’s like my brain short circuits when I think about it. It simply does not compute. I am especially confused by my husband’s attitude about it. He has been my touchstone on all this for the past year and a half, and now I don’t recognize his attitude at all. I can’t figure out where his head is at about any of it, and it’s incredibly disorienting, and it’s making all the uncertainty even harder. My touchstone is gone and I feel lost and alone.

I feel like I wasn’t that concerned about my kids getting Covid, but I had to foster a certain fear of it to make all the restrictions seem reasonable, and now I’m just supposed to jettison that fear because the benefits of in person learning outweigh (for my kids at least) the risks of the virus. And I do believe the trade off is worthwhile (again for my family, in our specific situation), but now that I’ve fostered this fear, and made all the restrictions seem reasonable, and I’m not sure how to dampen feelings of panic that all this exposure at school inspires.

So that is where I’m at. It’s actually a relief to recognize that all these seemingly disparate freakouts where just offshoots of the same plant of school-starting-panic. The roots of this plant grow strong, and deep and I’m sure I cannot rid myself of them completely. At this point I think I just need to trim the offshoots, keep the overgrowth manageable until later in the year, when I’ve gotten my bearings enough to do the hard work of digging it out. Hopefully by then the roots will be weaker and have less of a hold on me. In the meantime I need to give myself a lot of grace in the weeks leading up to the start of school. I’m going to stop reading the news. I’m going to stop working after 10pm. I’m going to run when the sun is out. I’m going to watch movies with my kids. I know I can get through this – one day at a time. I know I can find the light on the other side.

I need to be up this morning at 6:45am, and I was really stressed out last night that I’d snooze through my alarms, so when I woke up on my own at 6:10am I decided to come up and write a blog post. The idea of being jerked away in the middle of a sleep cycle did not sound fun, so I avoided it (and got to write a blog post)!

It’s Monday, and it’s a real Monday in that my kids need to get their butts up and get ready for camp at the (in their minds) ungodly hour of 7am. After a year plus of 8:30am wake ups, we desperately need this practice before the start of the school year.

Which is rapidly approaching! I’m basically in full “let’s get ready for school” mode! Now that my house is pretty picked up (the surfaces are clear but the bag of surface shit remains – today is the day I finally tackle it), I can actually clean the floors. I’m really pleased that we had people over this past week, which provided a much needed impetus to get the house in order. 16 months at home really did a number on the place, and to be perfectly honest, it hasn’t had a really deep clean since we rented it out on AirBnB in 2018. I’ve been doing a lot more of that kind of deep cleaning as I’ve picked it up, so steam cleaning the floors will bring us to a good place.

Later this week I’m going to drive to work (for the first time in a month!) to see what the staff room is looking like. The secretary is being paid hourly to move the old staff room into the (much smaller) new staff room and she indicated (in late June when I last saw her) that she would be done by now. If she’s not done I’ll ask my principal what I can do to get the space ready. I have a feeling that I’ll have two choices on moving: (a) do it myself on the timeline that I am comfortable with (and work many more unpaid hours) or (b) wait until it’s done for me (on a timeline that absolutely stresses me out). It’s a lose/lose situation, and when my classroom is a factor, I’m sure I’ll pick the “lose” where I lose my own time (doing it myself), and not my sanity (waiting for someone else to do it).

Not a super interesting post, but it’s where my head is at. I have a few other posts rattling around but they feel hard (especially the one about thoughts as I fill out our will and trust and rank our guardianship choices for our kids – ugh it’s so hard). So instead I come here with what’s been happening and what’s about to happen. I really am in “get it done” mode because I have two weeks of both kids in camp and I really do need to get stuff done. I want to start the year feeling prepared, and after all the upheaval of the pandemic that requires a lot of time and mental energy.

I am feeling all kinds of feelings about starting the school year with the delta variant raging (even here where we have high vaccination rates!). I still believe that my kids (and students) need to be at school full time, and in the end I am most worried that either district will pull back on their commitment to full time in person learning. But I’m also aware that with this new “hyper transmissible” (that is the phrase they are using now) variant of the virus, my (unvaccinated, under 12-year-old) kids will be returning in person at precisely the time when they have the most chance of actually getting sick.

Yes, our vaccination rates are high, but my kids go to the schools with the children of the populations in this area that are least likely to be vaccinated. My daughter will be attending a middle school where I’m assuming very few of the 7th and 8th graders (let alone 6th graders that have already turned 12, of which there will be very few in the fall) will be vaccinated. So they’ll all be packed into classrooms, with new groups of students every period, transmitting this new hyper transmissible variant as well as adults do (because of their age). Yes they will all be wearing masks* (the only thing keeping me sane right now), but it feels like only a matter of time until my daughter comes home sick, especially since they’re now saying the approval for kids under 12 won’t happen until mid-winter (I can’t actually find where “they” are saying this, but I’ve seen it referenced in multiple places so I’m assuming it’s been said).

I have so many feelings about how much in person learning my kids missed out on, only for them to have to return when their actual safety levels are probably at their lowest. I’m not going to go on a rampage about who is responsible for this situation, but suffice it to say, I’m really fucking mad about it.

I am deeply grateful that I will feel really safe seeing 150+ students in my classroom every day, and that I don’t have to worry about unknowingly bringing this hyper transmissible variant back to my family. Yes, there are breakthrough cases, but at this point it makes more sense for me to stress out about my kids getting it at school themselves, and not me bringing it back to them. These vaccines are incredibly effective and I’m trying hard not to let the media’s incessant (and confusing) coverage of mostly anecdotal breakthrough cases lead me to believe otherwise. (Hey, breakthrough cases are exceedingly rare, but here is a bunch of them that happened.)

Well that went a direction I wasn’t intending, but I guess I’m not surprised. I can’t really write about my “returning to school” mentality without getting into all the thoughts and feelings I’m processing about my kids getting 10 days of in person learning when it was much safer for them to be in a classroom, only to return full time now that delta is raging. Because that is absolutely in the background of all of it, making it hard to concentrate on anything else.

How are you feeling about the fall, and the start of school?

*I feel so deeply for families in states where schools cannot require masks in the classroom – that is absolute insanity and I’m honestly not sure what I would do if my governor were asking me to have my kids sit in a room with 32 other unmasked adolescents, in an area with middling vaccination rates. I’m so relieved and thankful that mask mandates in our schools are assured.

It’s day four of operation clean up this piece of shit house. I wouldn’t say it’s going great. Even “going well” feels like a strong way to say it. But, it’s going? Kinda? Sorta?

The reality is, suck at this. I am just so, so bad at… well stuff. I want to say it’s just a faulty “cleaning stuff up” mechanism, but it’s more than that. My whole relationship with stuff is dysfunctional.

I’m not ashamed about it anymore. Or even angry. I’m just disappointed. I wish this cycle of accumulating unnecessary stuff, becoming overwhelmed by unnecessary stuff, and then battling against unnecessary stuff did not consume so much of my life. I’ve tried so many strategies to change my relationship with stuff, but none of them seem to work.

I was struck by it while I packed my classroom. All around me, everywhere I looked, were the consequences of my relationship with stuff. Anytime a thing might have made my teaching life easier, I purchased it. Every. Time. There was maybe never a time when I found something that I thought might help me and instead of buying it I thought, but what if I didn’t?

I’ve been trying to ask myself that. When I have somethings sitting in my cart. I ask myself… but what if I didn’t? I swear a lot of the time it’s like tumbleweeds. I can image all kinds of positive (always positive!) future probabilities when I get the thing (it will do this for me! I will feel this!) I even think about how I could eventually just pass it along if it no longer served me. But when I think, but what if I didn’t there just isn’t anything there. Maybe I need to embrace the nothingness, because nothingness doesn’t require anything! It doesn’t require paying, or waiting, or picking up, or eventually giving away. It requires absolutely nothing from me. I need more that requires absolutely nothing from me.

I want to make, But what if I didn’t? My new mantra. I want to ask that every time I’m making a commitment – to a thing, to a person, to a feeling. But what if I didn’t buy that thing? But what if I didn’t go to that event? But what if I didn’t make that commitment?

When I came home from the KOA I told myself I’d take a week off of getting stuff. But then Old Navy was having a sale so I went on for grey tshirts (my son’s new uniform requires a grey top), and then I threw a couple bras in my cart EVEN THOUGH THERE IS NOTHING I NEED LESS THAN BRAS RIGHT NOW. And I’m suddenly obsessed with the idea that I need a new throw for the cat’s chair because I hate the orange one I use when the regular one is in the wash (I’m trying to wash it weekly because she has allergies and sheds like crazy). I absolutely do not need a new throw for the cat’s fucking chair. I DO NOT. But I know I’m going to google it. I just know it.

I’m telling myself I’m going to return the bras. They aren’t even the right size (they would fit but not be all that comfortable). I’m telling myself not to google throws for the chair. But then I think, maybe if I google it I will realize there aren’t any cute ones and the idea will disappear. Of course there will be a cute one. There is always a cute one.

But what if I didn’t? What if I didn’t get a new throw? I know exactly what because we’ve lived that way for ALWAYS and it was FINE.

Right now all my surfaces are clear and there is a giant Costco bag full of the shit that was on all my surfaces. Today I sit down and try to figure out what to do with all that shit. I hope I can remember, as I am forced to manage each one of the annoying ass things in that bag that I think to myself, but what if I hadn’t? What would I be doing with this day if I hadn’t brought this particular thing into my house?

Maybe that will help me as I continue to ask, but what if I didn’t?

Because the answer is always, it would be fine. It would be better, even. Why is that so hard for me to remember?

How do you feel about your relationship with stuff?

My friends and I left the KOA yesterday afternoon. We got one of the girl’s bikes fixed, grabbed some supplies, dipped in the pool, and then hit the road. My daughter was sad to see me go, but she’s doing fine. I send her a picture of her cat and her dragon every day, and that helps. Another mom goes up Wednesday for her daughter’s birthday and the last two nights. They all come home Friday.

Meanwhile my son started karate camp, and Wednesday is my husband’s 40th birthday. His friend and I planned a little “double date” for Saturday, but we aren’t doing much on the actual day. He didn’t do anything besides FaceTime me on my birthday, so there is no pressure for me to reciprocate.

I was realizing that is a big part of why I no longer want much, if any, fanfare on my birthday – I worry that I won’t do as much for others when their special day comes. One of the women in this group celebrated a birthday just last month and I couldn’t even show up to dinner because my daughter and husband were so sick. Then they all got me a cake, and presents, and other stuff on my birthday. I feel awful about that. If there is anything that worries me, it’s being the friend who doesn’t do as much for others as they do for me.

At least I figured out why I was feeling so uncomfortable about all the focus on my birthday. Still, I enjoyed all the attention and spent the day on the lake feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.

I have to admit, it’s so good to be home. Since June 26th I’ve only slept at home seven nights. After 16 months of barely leaving my house, it’s been a lot. And it’s ending at just the right time. The delta variant is changing the game and it’s making me nervous. We’ll be going back to our previous behaviors as soon as my daughter gets home from the KOA – only masked outdoor socializing for my kids and very limited indoor socializing with a small group for us (though probably even most of that will be outdoor – the fall is beautiful in these parts). I cannot wait until my kids can be vaccinated – I hope it happens soon.

I do worry a fair amount about the start of the school year. Everyone has committed to full, five days a week of in person learning, but the situation seems to be changing so rapidly. I worry about what can happen in four weeks, even in an area with high vaccination rates like our own. If we have to go back in distance learning I will lose my mind.

I’ve read quite a few articles about the people who are still dying from this disease and it makes me so depressed. How does one believe in the power of “natural consequences” after hearing stories of people who deny Covid even as it kills them? It’s one thing when someone doesn’t care about how their choices affect faceless strangers, but when they refuse to care about how they affect themselves and their families? I’m not quite sure how to process that. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for the health care workers who have to manage the care of those who won’t get vaccinated, even as they refuse to accept what is happening to them.

I wonder how many people lay there dying, and do realize how wrong they were, and wish they had made a different choice. That is heartbreaking to consider.

I’m so grateful that my family in Missouri are vaccinated. They don’t live in the counties that are being hit really hard right now, but numbers are rising everywhere in the state. I hope they can keep their kids safe until the vaccines are approved for children 11 and under.

Now that all our summer fun is over – and we were so lucky to enjoy a lot of travel with family and friends – I’m ready to turn my attention to my house and the upcoming school year. I plan to spend this week doing a big pick up around the house (I would love to call it a purge, but I doubt I’ll get that far – I just want EVERY surface clear and every random object to have a designated place). Then next week I will be back down in my classroom for a few precious hours a day to move my stuff and start setting up my new classroom. I’m starting to think about how I want this school year to look – how I teach changed so much in the last year, I need to think long and hard about what I want to keep, what I want to return to, and how both can coexist in a classroom. The obvious place to start is my overarching goals, so I should spend some of the coming weeks to articulate those, before I start thinking about how to incorporate what I learned last year into my in person classroom.

I’m also excited to embrace flexible seating in my new space. I had just started experimenting with before the pandemic hit – I literally got rid of my desks two weeks before shelter in place began! I know there are a lot more rules about seating now, but I’m hoping I can still adopt some nontraditional arrangements. I have a bigger classroom than most, and it already has a lot of furniture that can’t be moved to the newer, smaller staff room, so hopefully that will help. My principal is a very open minded, level headed leader so I know I’ll get as much support as can be provided in our return to full time in person learning.

Only 3.5 weeks until my first staff day. The count down to the end of summer has begun.,

When I was a kid a lot was made of my birthday. My summer birthday was celebrate multiple times – in May with my classmates, on my actual birthday in July, and later in the summer with other cousins whose birthdays fell in June, July or August.

My birthday was always a big deal. I expected it to be celebrated. I expected gifts and special events. I expected, kind of, a lot.

Gift giving was also important to me. I took great care in giving gifts, and I felt gift giving was one of my “love languages.”

And then I started sharing my life with a man who didn’t give gifts and didn’t celebrate birthdays.

It took a LONG time but I eventually became a person who didn’t want to do much for her birthday, and didn’t look forward to gift giving obligations (I eventually came to dread them).

My husband’s birthday is four days after mine, so I’m always acutely aware of what I have to do to “match ir surpass” his efforts. It’s usually nothing and I’m generally relieved. Since Mother’a Day is a month before Father’s Day this is always the case. After 13 years I appreciate the time and energy saved by not celebrating or gift giving on holidays or birthdays. It just doesn’t mean what it used to for me anymore.

The reality of how much my attitude towards birthdays and gift giving has changed has been really apparent in recent years, as my friends have taken on the task of celebrating my birthday. My 40th birthday happened last summer during the pandemic and my friend hosted a celebration in her backyard, despite it being very inconvenient for her at the time.

This year they are doing it again, trying to make up for the 40th blow out I couldn’t have by really doing up my 41st. They got all sorts of special things for me to enjoy today, little things they know I love. And everything is about me, about my day and about celebrating it (even though this a joint summer trip that all of us are a part of). I’m so unaccustomed to all the attention that it’s actually a little hard. Which honestly feels crazy to me; there was a time when the lack of fanfare around my birthday was so hard for me to handle – I believed that caring about it was a fundamental part of who I was (some people just CARED about their birthdays and others did not, I believed). But I’ve done a complete 180* and now I would maybe prefer my birthday be all but forgotten. I don’t mind that it’s mostly just another day – I kind of appreciate it. But now I have friends who want to celebrate it, and I’m not sure if I like doing that anymore. I’ve maybe switched sides on the “caring about my birthday” part of my identity I previously believed was intractable.

All this to say, today is my birthday and I’m turning 41 and my friends are celebrating me and I am appreciative and feel loved and I also have other complicated feelings about it. I’m not ungrateful, just a little confused.

Here’s to everyone on their birthday.

How do you feel about celebrating your birthday?