July 28, 2020

Guilt.

What, what?

I am four days into being an official stay-at-home-mom. I have not checked my district email in days (only every once in a while to see if it still works), and my brain is confused.

Shouldn’t I be planning something? Shouldn’t I be setting something up? Shouldn’t I be doing trainings, answering emails, worrying about…something?

You know that feeling where you feel like you’re missing something but you can’t figure out what it is? I live there now. I am always trying to figure out what should be on my to-do list but isn’t.

I am a productive person by nature. I like to cross things off my list, and I place a lot of value in accomplishing tasks.

In the last four days, I have…
-Rearranged, organized, and decorated my new office
-Done laundry twice
-Emptied the dishwasher 3 times
-Taken donations to Goodwill
-Tidied my house 7,486 times
-And, oh yeah, kept my baby alive and happy (mostly)

But it doesn’t feel like enough. This is half of me. Usually I’m balancing this list with my Teacher To-Dos (which are always more extensive). But that is a non-issue now, and my brain doesn’t understand.

It’s not even like I have a ton of down time right now. I don’t sit around doing nothing all day, I’m just not checking things off. I don’t have projects that I can start and complete. There’s no clear cut ending.

My days all look a lot alike now.
-Wake up and get ready (for what?)
-Make breakfast for Lu and me
-Play for a while
-Go on a walk (sometimes)
-Do some chores
-Read (some days)
-Have lunch with Lu
-Play time
-Play again
-Play some more

I find myself constantly searching for things I could be doing, as if what I’m actually doing isn’t enough. I have to keep reminding myself that just because it doesn’t have a spot on a list doesn’t mean it’s not important. In fact, it is the most important. Doing life with my girl is the most important job I could possibly be doing right now. I know that in my heart.

I just need my brain to catch up.

July 25, 2020

Joy.

I am awkward.

I have never been great socially, and that causes me a lot of anxiety. I panic about social situations, meeting new people, and any kind of gathering. I tend to withdraw or decline invitations, and eventually I stop getting invited, which leads to further panic.

I have not thought of myself as someone with a lot of friends since high school. I have friends I see every once in a while. Friends I talk to when something big happens. Friends I text a lot but almost never see. My anxiety brain often asks me, “Does that even really count as having friends?”

I’ve let myself fall into this narrative that I am just not someone with friends. I am super close with my family, so that’s okay. Some people get good families, some get good friends, and only the lucky few get both. I’m just not that lucky.

But then this thing happened where I quit my job and wrote a blog about it, and so many people reached out to me. They asked how I was feeling and told me they were happy for me and told me they’d miss me. They joked with me and felt for me and supported me.

My anxiety brain was confused by this. Why are they doing this? You didn’t even ask them to. Some of them you haven’t even talked to in a while. Some of them you only know online for goodness sake! This feels weird.

But my heart thought: This is friendship.

I have so many people who love me and care for me and support me. People who think of me when I’m not around. People who notice when I go dark. People who share themselves with me and want me to do the same. People who want to know my thoughts and feelings. Even if we only talk through text. Even if we only talk when something big happens. Even if we only talk every once in a while.

This season is big for me. And I can feel my people crawling out of the woodwork to support me through it.

And that’s friendship.

July 23, 2020

Anger

Let me set the scene. It is late July 2020. We are seven months into The Year From Hell, and a global pandemic has been raging for almost five months now. The country was flipped upside down in March. Businesses shut down, parks closed, and schools turned virtual.

I spent the last three months of the school year at home with my husband and daughter figuring out how to turn my very in-person job into a computer-based, self-paced, parent-facilitated classroom. I learned new technology, communicated with parents on a daily basis, and turned all my lessons digital. I figured out a grading system that balanced the expectation that work is completed with the understanding that all of my students need adult support, and most of their parents are now (like myself) full-time working and full-time parenting. I video-chatted with students who have proximity control and hands-on activities as accommodations, I tracked data submitted through the screen, and I attended approximately one-hundred virtual trainings a week. I did my very best to keep my students on-track socially and academically, and I kept my six-month-old fed, cared for, and alive at the same time.

I worked my ass off.

And it sucked! Virtual teaching sucks! Doing two full-time jobs simultaneously sucks! Uprooting everything I know about what works best for my students and attempting to turn it all digital over a weekend sucks! The whole thing was horrible, and I don’t know a single teacher who enjoyed this time or thought it was great for kids.

But, you know what? We were safe. My family was safe, I was safe, and my students were safe. So we did it. Not because it was great, but because it was necessary.

And now it’s July. We are 3 weeks away from a new school year, and cases of the virus (and deaths from the virus) are continuing to rise. Things are undeniably worse now than when we shut down the country in March, and yet we are considering opening school buildings back up in a matter of weeks.

But don’t worry, most kids won’t get the virus.
Probably only some will die.
They need their social interaction, you know. (Six feet apart, with masks on.)
Parents need to work.
Virtual school is making them fall behind.
Things are’t really getting better, so we need to learn to live our lives through this, and that means sending kids back to school.
Guess it’s a risk we’re willing to take.

Cool. Great. Awesome.

Three months ago teachers were heroes, and now we’re sacrificial lambs. We’re being told to risk our lives and our families’ lives to go back into a clearly unsafe environment. I’m supposed to expose my daughter to who-knows-what by putting her in daycare, so I can go work and expose myself to who-knows-what, so I can expose her further when I pick her up, so we can both expose my husband when we get home every day. But it’s okay because we probably won’t die.

I am infuriated.

I have seen countless teachers talk about how they don’t feel safe. I have seen countless teachers express their thoughts and ideas, begging for someone to listen. For someone to care.

We are not respected.
We are not valued.
We are not taken into consideration.

Well, I won’t.

I won’t risk my life, my husband’s life, my daughter’s life for this. I won’t be forced into this horrible position by people who aren’t willing to put themselves in the same position. Or support people who do. Or fund supplies and materials to make this even the slightest bit less insane.

So, I quit.

I was forced out of a job I love because I wasn’t willing to die for it.

And honestly, I am a lucky one. I am able to leave this job to protect myself and my family. I have that option. Many, many others don’t, and that is being taken advantage of. More people will get sick and die from this, and they will simply be replaced. And no one will take responsibility. And it will be allowed to continue. I am outraged.

You should be too.

July 22, 2020

Let me start by saying this: I have never in my life had a desire to be a stay-at-home mom.

And yet, that is exactly where I find myself. I unexpectedly resigned from my job, and now I am facing a year at home with a one-year-old. Yesterday, I was a full-time teacher, and now I am a full-time mom.

I’m scared y’all.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter more than life itself. She is the light of my life, and I would move mountains for her. But I’m not sure I want her to be my full-time job. I have my own dreams and passions, and I’m afraid those might get drowned out in the coming year when I am 100% in charge of this other human (or is she 100% in charge of me?).

I’m trying to be very conscious of my feelings on this matter. As I was trying to decide if resigning was really the best option for my family and me, I practiced feeling my feelings. I felt them, then labeled them, then filed them.

Anger.
Fear.
Hope.
Fury.
Sadness.
Guilt.
Shame.
Worry.
Calm.
Disappointment.
Grief.
Hesitation.

I sorted through my feelings file and actively sought out the feelings that don’t serve me.

Anger.
Guilt.
Shame.
Outrage.

I laid them to the side because they do not get a say in the matter. Then, I looked at some of the feelings I had left.

Calm.
Acceptance.
Optimism.
Faith.

I used those to decide.

And then the decision was done, and the call was made. The forms were filled out, the files were transferred, and here I am now, a stay-at-home mom.

Now I’m working on reorganizing my feelings file because new ones keep popping up (like feelings tend to do), and there is one I keep coming back to.

Magic.

This time is filled with big changes, and that can lead to a lot of fear and uncertainty. But, it can also lead to greatness. In his book, The Minpins, Roald Dahl says, “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

I have always been a believer in magic.

I’ve chosen to use this time of my life to seek out joy and light and wonder. I’m not going to let fear win. I can do hard, beautiful things.

This is The Magic Season.