Not a Wasted Word

I have been silent here about what is happening in our country. I can be silent – I can wait and try to figure out the right thing to say – because of my privilege. I recognize that. I also recognize that hiding behind my privilege, and staying silent, is not what I want to do, or who I want to be. So here I am, saying something, even though it’s probably not the right thing.

Yes I will be reading more black authors. Yes I will be support Black Rights organizations with donations. Yes I will be spending my money at black businesses in my city and elsewhere. Yes I will be talking to my kids more about racism. Yes, I believe these are all important steps and yes, I recognize none of this is enough.

I care deeply about creating equality in my community, and the world. I send my kids to a very underperforming school where they, as white upper middle class students, are the minority. I could easily send them to another school in San Francisco, with more middle and upper middle class students, where I don’t need to be so involved in the school because other parents are willing and able to do it. I could even send them to schools in my own district, where the student population is even whiter and wealthier. I don’t. I keep my kids in the diverse, and struggling school in our neighborhood, so they will grow up in the diversity I want to see everywhere in the world. Where they will have friends that look differently than they do, and who grow up in homes very different than ours. (And they do). I also send them to that school so that I am motivated to work at the ground level to create change in the schools in our district that really need it.

I like to think that I am “walking the walk” by sending my kids to that school. I’ve seen first hand, and read in comments on my blog, that most upper middle class parents are not willing to make that choice. And yet I know it’s not enough.

I want to volunteer for an organization that supports and advocates for black students in SFUSD, where they performing at alarmingly low rates. SFUSD fails a large portion of its student population, but it fails no group as profoundly as it fails black children. I am a teacher and I understand education reform better than most things. This feels like a place where I can make a difference, or at least try to.

So that is what I will be doing. I will let you know more about my efforts as I move forward with this.

{This post was written last week, before everything went to hell in a hand basket. It feels important that I mention that.}

Mali recently wrote a post about experience, and she mentioned that once she read an infertility blogger say that after the birth of her second child she was all done with major positive milestones in her life, and that all she has to look forward to were the negative ones (like divorces and deaths).

I’m pretty sure that blogger was me.

If it wasn’t me, I’m sure I wrote a post about that after my son was born, at least once. I can’t remember when or even where (it is probably on my old, old blog and I am not taking the time to comb through those posts – what a rabbit hole). And the thing is I remember having those thoughts and feelings and I think I have a decent recollections of what I said in the post, so I thought I’d do a bit of a follow up.

I absolutely do remember writing something like that. I remember feeling something like that. My mid twenties to my mid thirties felt like such a monuments time. I was checking off all the boxes I had been worried would be left unchecked, and I was incredibly relieved that I was married with two children in my mid thirties. This was literally all I wanted for my life, at least it was at the time.

Perhaps that is why I felt I had passed up all my milestones. But it was probably other things as well, like the fact that I was earlier to do all that stuff than my close friends (because I was afraid of being infertile before I even had sex thanks to my mom’s history and my own amenorrhea), and I knew they all still had that to anticipate.

{And let’s not forget that I am someone who struggles enough with comparing myself with others that I left ALL FORMS of social media except for blogging around this time and NEVER WENT BACK. Clearly, I am someone who looks externally for validation that should be coming from within.}

Maybe it was because I chose my profession mostly as a “thing to do so I could still be with my kids a lot,” and not because I was necessarily passionate about it (which, by the way, is a horrible reason to choose a profession – I don’t recommend it) . I’ve never felt a big pull to any professional calling and that has always felt like a fault, or character flaw of mine (I can’t tell you how many messages my generation got about following our bliss and living our passion), so I didn’t readily value the work I would do moving forward. This is something I still struggle with to some degree.

I believe at the time my marriage wasn’t super strong. It wasn’t bad, but my husband and I had a lot of work to do. It’s sad to say, but I don’t think, at that point, I really looked forward to a lifetime with my husband. We felt like co-parents more than even partners or friends. Emotionally, we were too exhausted to work on our relationship.

At that point I had no big goals to work toward or accomplish. I felt stuck in a lot of areas of my life. Work felt like something I had to do to make money, not because it was meaningful to me. I had flirted with ramping up my writing but realized that wasn’t something I really loved either, and I was letting that dream go. I had a few close friends, but I could sense those friendships were floundering. (They imploded not long after.) I guess I just felt like I didn’t have any big life events to anticipate.

I think really, I wasn’t that happy at that point of my life, and I was realizing that there wasn’t any big life event left to make me happy. I thought getting married and having kids would give my life ULTIMATE MEANING, and that after I had those things I would be FOREVER CONTENT. I’ve spent a lot of the last six years (decade really) coming to terms with the fact that contentment has to be something I find inside myself, not in my family or anything else.

That is not to say that my family doesn’t make me happy. They do. They absolutely do. There is not a day that goes by (at least not many) where I don’t actively feel grateful for what I have. Because I really do have everything I ever wanted.

But I appreciate it all now, much more than I did back then, because I’ve done some soul searching about a lot of things, and I’ve learned that once you hit a certain point in your life (like, the point where you have everything you thought you wanted) contentment is choice you haven’t to actively, not a guaranteed outcome.

I’ve spent the last few years thinking a lot about my job, about whether or not I’m happy there and whether or not I feel fulfilled. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m as happy and fulfilled there as I would be anywhere. I can skate by when that is what I need and I can challenge myself when I need something more. I am proud of what I do at my job and I know there are ways I could expand my professional repertoire if I really want to.

Things are happier at home too. My husband and I have done A LOT of work to get to a place where things feel equitable enough that resentment is not a third party in our marriage. My husband and I are partners and friends now, and I genuinely look forward to spending the rest of my life with him (if we are lucky enough to have that).

I don’t think much about milestones anymore. I’m lucky that the women I “talk” to every day (mostly on a text chain) are in basically the same place as me in life, and we’re all just trying to make it work. I haven’t been on social media in ages so I’m not seeing the happy shots of the smiling kids, or the perfectly framed meal someone made, or the beautiful garden they landscaped. Basically I’m not comparing someone’s brightest moment to my lackluster every day existence, which makes me appreciate my every day existence more. My kids are older and don’t require EVERY MOMENT of my time. I can make the space in my schedule to practice martial arts, or take a time-intensive professional development class, or go out with my friends (back when that was a thing we could do). And I have good friends to go out with. My life is full and I am, for the most part, happy. The idea that I only have sad milestones left feels absurd.

Well, maybe not that absurd. I mean I am turning 40, and my parents are looking so much older than I ever imagined they would be. Two girl friends of mine are getting divorces, and another one lost a parent last year. I do feel like I’m entering a different phase of my life, one that will look a lot different than my 20s and 30s did. But I don’t believe it will be defined by loss and losing. I know a lot of other happy, positive things, are waiting for me too.

I appreciated reading Mali’s post, and being reminded of who I was back when I wrote those words about milestones (if it really was me she was referring to!) It’s nice to take the time to recognize where I was and how far I’ve come. (And less nice, but important, to reflect on how my words about my own experience made other people feel about their lives.) I really am a more content person than I was when I wrote that, and I hope I’m more sensitive when I write about my life. It’s nice to know people can change. I hope I keep changing in these kinds of ways.

I purposely didn’t reas the news today. Yesterday it was so awful, and I felt so hopeless reading it, that today I decided I was going to step away.

And I did. For the whole day. And then I clicked into the NYT and then into TPM and then into WaPo and holy shit.

I’m glad I got a day away. It really did make me happier. I wrote that post I just published about how things felt okay. So I know it does work, stepping away. I think I’m going to do it more often because I really does feel like America is unraveling.

It’s a fitting end to this President’s first term.

I’m almost tempted to go back to posts from the last few years at this time (weeks before my school year comes to a close) to remind myself just how stressful and hectic they are. I think I’m usually pretty miserable right around now, if I let myself be honest about it. This is the time when I’m trying to cram in way more content than the academic calendar (and my students’ attention spans) will allow, when I’m planning for my daughter’ birthday, when I’m trying to keep track of all the parties and events and what I signed up to bring to them. It’s a brutal time of year, one I’m always just trying to get through.

It’s not like that this year, and I can’t decide if it’s horrible of me to enjoy the relative calm I’m feeling right now, two weeks before our school year ends.

I was thinking the other day that I haven’t even looked at July on a calendar. Normally I would have a doc with every week scheduled – flights, camps, parties, events. I don’t even know what day my 40th birthday falls on (that’s not true – I remember being excited that 2020 was a leap year because it pushed my birthday to a Friday when it’s easier to celebrate – but I haven’t thought about that once since this started). My daughter is going to one camp – a sailing camp on Treasure Island – during the last three weeks of summer, and that is literally all I have on the calendar. I wonder, in three or four years, when things look a lot more like they used to, what summers will be like for us. Crazy to to think by then my daughter will be turning 13 or 14! Eek! Things will probably look then very different than they did last year, even if they are back to “normal.”

Things aren’t all hunky dory around here. My husband is very busy helping various officials at City Hall write policy to guide business as they get ready for various stages of reopening on June 15th. It’s incredibly stressful and since we’re around each other all day, it’s hard not to get into his overwhelmed and depressed headspace.

Things in the Bay Area are still very locked down and there will still be tight restrictions on everything even as we enter our first stage of reopening. In fact, tonight an order requiring adults to wear masks outside at all times, even during recreation, will go into effect (before we only had to wear them accessing essential services). It’s crazy for me to think that some states are pretty much back to business as usual. Our current shelter in place order, which was set to expire on June 1st, has been extended indefinitely. I don’t really know what that means in the context of our reopening. All I do know is that nothing is going back to “normal” here anytime soon.

The uncertainty surrounding the next school year is stressful as a teacher and a parent, but there is nothing I can do about it so I’m trying to let it go. I’m able to manage that more than I would have expected months ago.

I do have plans to be in outdoor spaces, where a few friends can drop their kids off for social distancing play dates. I think being outside every day will help give some structure to our days. I’m even thinking about painting a couple rooms in my house… which means maybe I’m handling things so well because I’ve finally just lost my mind. (I HATE painting.)

The sink was installed today without a hitch. We’re pretty much done buying things for the new space. I look forward to purging and organizing this summer so that we’re ready for more time at home this fall. I’m no longer dreading the summer, and I know I’m incredibly lucky to be in the situation I’m in. I’ve always wanted to give my kids more unstructured time, but it was always so easy to sign them up for camps they were interested in. I hope to make the best of this forced summer of nothing. Maybe we’ll even enjoy it.

My kids actually finished their school year officially today. I still have one week of work, but it will be much more low key than the last ten. It’s weird not to have a hard end date, but it’s nice to ease into a less stressful schedule. Next week will be weird with me working and my kids not doing distance learning, but we’ll figure it out.

How are you feeling about the summer?

We attended our son’s Kindergarten promotion on Wednesday via Zoom. Both sets of grandparents were also “in attendance,” but since you can’t change the tiles in gallery mode, we couldn’t see either of them while we watched the proceedings.

It was a fine little celebration. And honestly, my son hates stuff like that so he was probably relieved to do it that way. I was a little sad because I missed his TK promotion last year and now I feel like I missed this one too. Having said that, I’m glad I didn’t have to take off work to be there (which is why I missed the TK one, because I just couldn’t take another day off to be at his school!)

Want to know what I’m really happy not to be doing right now? Managing all the end of year festivities that usually make this month so manic. I don’t have to buy/make/deliver treats to class parties. I don’t have to take off time to attend end of year events. I don’t have to do a lot of things I don’t particularly love, and I’m trying to appreciate that because it is a silver lining.

I’m finally seeing articles about the budget crisis that public schools will be facing next year. It’s going to be REALLY, REALLY BAD. This article from WaPo sums it up in an effective, if totally depressing, way.

One thing that the articles mentions is the very real possibility that schools will return to distance learning in the fall because they simply can’t afford to return students and teachers to the classrooms.

“We know that it will cost more to return to school,” said Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country. “It will cost more because we need to invest in protective equipment. It will cost more because schools need to not just be cleaned but sanitized. The mental health crisis in the communities will come to the schools when we reopen. We need more nurses and counselors to support students.”

But like most states, California is facing massive budget shortfalls. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has already proposed a 10 percent cut to the state’s main K-12 school fund, with additional reductions elsewhere. In Los Angeles, that would translate to a $500 million loss and “irreparable harm,” Beutner said. In San Diego, officials said it might mean something even worse. Given the costs associated with safely reopening, the district might be forced to conduct school remotely as a cost-savings move.

“The math simply will not work,” said district spokesman Andrew Sharp. “We cannot ask schools to do more at the same time as their funding is being slashed.”

The San Francisco Chronicle had a similar article but it’s behind a paywall so I can’t even grab a paragraph boo.

It’s really going to suck when we don’t go back at all because of budge cuts. Blerg. The poor kids of this country.

I got a lot done today, and I’m feeling pretty productive right now. I also feel that I legitimately leveled up in my handy-woman-around-the-house role. Which feels… good.

I have always been the handyman of our house. I am the one who fixes the things. Early in my relationship with my husband, my FIL got me a power drill and it was one of the first time I realized he really saw me. His son has never used it once, but I’ve completed many a project with that power drill.

When something needs to be built, or hung, or tinkered with, I’m the one to do it. Just last month I replaced the dishwasher waste tube that was leaking under the sink. I’ve built all the IKEA furniture in this house (most of the furniture in this house is from IKEA). I’ve hung both my kids swings from their ceilings. I recently jury rigged a hanging projector set up on the ceiling of our new space downstairs. I am proud of my handiness around the house. I like to get things done, and to feel confident that I can do them myself.

Over a month ago I ordered a sink from IKEA. It will go in our downstairs bathroom, where the current sink is very small and very low quality. I have been very excited to switch out the sink, because the one down there barely functions.

The sink finally came (ordering from IKEA online is not nearly the positive experience that I find purchasing stuff from their warehouses to be). I started putting together the cabinet this weekend. Finally, I got to the bamboo top, which was the whole reason I bought it. Imagine my surprise when I took a solid piece of bamboo out of the box, with no hole for the plumbing of a sink.

I opened the sink next, and found the directions for installing it on the cabinet. Here they are.

Um, is that a jigsaw? This is a piece of IKEA furniture – the whole idea is that they give you everything you need and you easily put it together. WHAT THE ACTUAL F***!

To be clear I didn’t even know what that thing was when I first glanced at the directions. I had to send a picture to my dad and he informed me that it was a jigsaw and that he had one. So evidently I was going to cut a hole into the beautiful piece of bamboo with a jigsaw. It feels like a lot of things can go wrong when cutting a hole into a piece of bamboo with a jigsaw. WHY?!

The answer to that question is that because the sink sits on top of the bamboo, it can be at any angle you want. You can turn it sideways a bit and make it more artsy. I was not interested in this, and I wish IKEA offered the option of buying the beautiful piece of bamboo with the hole already cut it in for boring, straight down the middle, placement of the sink.

I immediately decided that I couldn’t handle any of this and emailed my plumber to ask him to do it. But after a couple communications back and forth I realized I’d rather figure it out myself than hope he was actually understating what I was saying (and showing him via that photo above). Also, I didn’t want to pay for an hour more of plumbers’ fee (I guessed it would actually be longer than that and cost even more).

I figured out (from some google inquiries) that the adhesive shown in the directions was silicone, so I bought some of that before driving down to my parents’ house to get the jigsaw.

This morning I traced the cutout and drilled the initial hole and used the jigsaw to cut out the hole. The jigsaw was hard to wield and I’m still surprised I was able to follow my guidelines, but I did it. Then I sealed the cut wood with silicone and let it dry.

• 

Later today I used silicone to glue the sink down. I feel confident that the seal is complete around the entire sink.

• 

The plumber comes Friday to take out the old sink, and install the new sink cabinet and faucet and connect it to the plumbing.

I am quite proud of how it turned out. I didn’t think I could do it – and even asked a professional to do it for me – but in the end I did it myself. I definitely feel like, with the sawing and the silicone, I leveled up in my handyman credentials with this project.

I also cleaned the playhouse that has been growing mold in the backyard for half a decade (the water conservation Californian in me just couldn’t dump all the water from that inflatable pool, so I was finally inspired to clean the playhouse before I emptied the pool). It looks nice enough now that I think someone will quickly pick it up when I post it on free craigslist. I have been dreading cleaning that because it really was a gross, disgusting mess.

Sure I didn’t get any “work” done and I’ll be up late tonight, but I got a lot of personal goals checked off today and I feel pretty darn good about it. I promise I’ll send pictures of the sink once the plumbers install it (I really hope there aren’t any issues and it goes in without a hitch – with my house there is usually a hitch).

How has your week been?

Thank you to those who reached out after my last post with resources and support. I really appreciate it.

The weekend was a little better. My husband and I had a bit of a row, but we ended up talking it through to a satisfying understanding. I had been thinking that my post was an exaggeration, that surely it wasn’t really that bad. But after speaking in earnest with my husband, I recognized that it is that bad, and that we’re both really struggling.

The weekend was probably better because we didn’t do much. A friend let us borrow her big inflatable pool and we enjoyed some warm (for SF) high 70’s days in the “pool.” I wanted to hit up the beach but knew the crowds would be crazy so we just stayed home. It was the right move. We all needed the rest.

I also got in a run by myself and that was very much appreciated. I am so glad my favorite local running spot is open again.

What did you do over the long weekend?

Sheltering in place is hard. Sheltering in place while working full time and also supervising distance learning for your kids is really hard. But the hardest thing is spending every hour of every day with an emotionally reactive child.

I know all kids are struggling right now. I know this is difficult on all parents. I know everyone is doing the best they can. But spending every hour of every day with a kid who cannot manage their reactions is exhausting in a way I have never experienced before.

I”m so tired of waiting for my kid to lose their shit. I’m so tired of taking deep breaths through the screams and the throwing and the hitting and the kicking. I’m so tired of being consistent and holding firm on boundaries and being berated and insulted for my efforts. I’m so tired of feeling like the consistency isn’t paying off.

Consistency is the key to any behavior management plan, but I think it’s efficacy is bullshit. We require our kids to brush their teeth every morning and evening. We require them to eat three meals every day. We require they take showers twice a week. We require limits on screen time. We have always upheld these expectations and every day I still have to navigate tantrums when I ask for any one of the these things to be done. I respond with empathy and understanding, but firm resolve, every time, and it doesn’t seem to change anyone’s reactions. I still have to fight for even the most basic of self-care to be accomplished.

I’m so tired of managing my kid’s behavior. I’m tired of walking on egg shells. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m tired of steeling myself for a meltdown every time I request the smallest thing. I’m tired of keeping calm while I am physically and verbally assaulted. I’m tired.

I try so hard to do be proactive, to model the behavior I want to see, to practice strategies when we are calm, to remind them of strategies before the rage boils over. I’m working through the steps in The Explosive Child but it seems to be getting me no where.

Yes, I know kids do well when they can. I understand it’s a lack of skills, but I don’t understand when the skills will be learned. It feels like there has been AMPLE opportunity for these skills to be learned.

The idea of spending the next three months like this makes it hard to breath. It crushes something deep inside me. It strangles any semblance of hope I may have. Once school stops all the boundaries will be created and held by me. I can’t even point to an outside entity anymore. The wrath of my explosive child when expectations are enforced will be brutal. It will be a string of long, hard days.

I know this too will pass. But right now, man is it hard.

Our St. Louis plans were officially cancelled and our daughter’s Girl Scout sleep away camp the last week of summer was also called off, so our summer is officially a vast wasteland of nothing.

Rec and Park still hasn’t announced if they will have any kinds of camps. Even if they do, we probably won’t participate because it doesn’t seem fair to take those spots when our situation is more flexible than most people’s. I also doubt my kids will handle wearing masks all day very well. I know we need to start training them to wear masks for next school year, but I’m dreading it.

I’m not trying to complain about the summer, because I know I am very lucky that I don’t have to work. I mean, I’ll be working, but it’s not the same when people aren’t expecting deliverables from you on a daily basis. It’s just a lot of time to fill, with confusing guidance on how we can safely fill it.

I can see that we’re heading into that time when we see and hear and read about other people’s choices as reopening begins and we start to wonder what we feel is appropriate and whether or not we should take the actions of others into considerations (after following public health guidelines of course). I’ll be curious to see what California requires and recommends starting on June 1st. Besides the reopening of county parks, nothing has really reopened in my world yet so I haven’t had to make any decisions about what I feel comfortable doing or where I feel comfortable going. My parents want more time with my kids – they want to take them for an entire weekend – but that is still technically against the rules. Once that is an option again I’ll have to decide if I accept the risks of my kids possibly exposing my parents. What does one do if the people who are more at risk accept the risk and want to be with the people who are less at risk? These are hard questions to answer.

I’ve read a couple of articles suggesting that countries that are re-opening, and even data from the US that looks at when different aspects of the shelter in place started in different areas, suggest that closing schools did/does not make much of a difference in community spread. I wonder if any study could come out that would inform the return to school in the fall. My guess is no.

My district is now anticipating a $4 million dollar budget deficit, which is crippling for a district as small as ours. I don’t really understand why I’m not reading ANYTHING about the devastating budget crisis that is about to hit public schools across the nation. I guess there are more important things to consider.

I’m becoming more concerned with next school year for my own kids. SFUSD is a mediocre school district (at best) when there isn’t a pandemic destroying the foundations of public education – it will most certainly be a shit show of epic proportions next year. My daughter is in a 4/5 split this year so she’ll have the same teacher next year, which eases my anxiety a lot. My son, who is struggling with all this a lot more, will hopefully have a teacher I’ve wanted for years (we missed her with my daughter because she moved down to 1st grade when my daughter was moving up to 2nd). But still, even if they have good teachers, the situation will be so grim. And I plan to move them both out of their school the following year (we aren’t planning on staying for 6th grade even though it’s a K-8 so we’ll need to find a middle school for our daughter), which means I have to find new schools for them when touring will probably not even be allowed. I honestly hadn’t really thought that much about them in the context of the next school year and now that I am I’m feeling a little panicked.

It’s the middle of the week and I’m tired and things feel harder right now than they will after the coming long weekend. As always, I’m trying to take it one day at a time.

Being in my classroom today was a totally surreal experience. It was like walking through a time machine back into my normal life. Everything was where I left it nine weeks ago when I walked out on Friday, March 13th assuming I would be back in three weeks (and believing that teaching from home for two weeks because of the coronavirus was the strangest thing that could ever happen). If you had told the me that walked out of that classroom that Friday that I wouldn’t see a student in that classroom again during the 2019-20 school year, I wouldn’t have been able to process the words.

There were still papers in the turn baskets and pencils on the floor. It was like a time capsule, a physical reminder so potent that I could stand in the middle of that room and feel the normal settling like dust all around me.

I cried as I packed it up. The weight of the reality of it was so heavy. I haven’t spent more than 10 minutes in my classroom in over two months. We missed an entire trimester of the school year. So many moments between my students that I didn’t realize I cherished until they were ripped away.

I’ve written here before that I’m surprised to learn how much I genuinely enjoy teaching. I had no idea how important that aspect of my life, of my identity, was until it was gone. I’ve been teaching for 16 years, and it took a pandemic, and two months of sheltering in place, for me to really know how much I appreciate what I do.

There are definitely aspects I don’t miss. To be sure. I sometimes think about the challenges and realize it’s been nice to have an extended respite from some aspects of my job. But there is more to it that I love than I realized. I appreciate learning that.

I doubt I’ll be back in that classroom on the first day of 2020-21 school year. At some point, later in the fall, I think I’ll be welcoming students back into my classroom, but it will look so different than it ever has before. I’ve been teaching the same thing, at the same school, for a decade and a half, and I can’t fathom what next year will look like. It’s a strange feeling. It’s surreal.