The First Day of School

 

Both of my children are back in school, kind of. My youngest went back in-person on Tuesday. She was super pumped about it. She picked out her clothes for the week. The night before she packed her lunch. She made a sandwich on a baguette and make sure her new pencils were packed. I was just sitting on the couch drinking wine confused.

That's my new default state. hahaha.

The next morning she got up early and got dressed. She looked so pretty. I told her that I would take her to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. It's her favorite. We were leaving the neighborhood and she was like, "I'm going to put on some music to get me in a good mood," she said. She put on "Daydream Believer." She was belting it out. "How many kids in high school know this song?" I asked. She shrugged. "Probably no one."  She's like 55. Love her so much. She got a Boston creme doughnut and a frozen hot chocolate. We picked up her friends and off we went. 

As I approached the high school, I felt some kind of way. I was definitely in the Twilight Zone. There was a line of students outside, all in masks waiting to get their temperature taken to get into the school. I enjoyed watching the kids walk up in their masks. They look like badass ninjas. It was exactly 6 months since school has been out. My daughter and her friends put their masks on, climbed out of the car and joined the throngs of teenagers on the sidewalk. I watched my daughter for a moment before driving off. Then, I sobbed like a little bitch. Because I was happy and devastated and conflicted all at once. 

When I picked her up in the afternoon, she walked me through her day. It was very different than school had ever been. There were fewer kids than she thought there were going to be. Her yearbook class only has 3 other students. They truly are socially distanced so talking in class isn't really a thing. They can only walk one way in the hallways. Even though she has classes next door to each other, she has to go all the way around. The cafeteria has marked spots. There was a girl who was in the marching band with her last year that she has been having lunch with. They can't really sit in groups. She was disappointed on the first day. "High school kids don't really eat lunch, so I didn't eat either." She was so excited about her baguette sandwich. I gave her a speech about how you need to eat and drink water throughout the day and fuck what everyone else does. "Why don't you just eat and then maybe other people will eat?" 

My oldest was like that sometimes too. She'd bring home a whole packed lunch with two bites taken out of it. I don't understand teenagers. They don't want to eat, or wear a coat when it's cold, or do basic things that are healthy and literally keep them alive. It makes me crazy. She did eat the next few days. 

She likes being back at school. It has been good for her soul. It is some semblance of normalcy. It's good for us because we don't feel guilty having to work and feeling like she has nothing to do.

My oldest is virtual until January at least. We are making the most of it but she is not a fan. She doesn't have that many classes left to graduate, so when we picked her classes, she only had 2 left to take senior year. There was some issue with Spanish 2 schedule. So all of her classes are through the school and Spanish through the state's virtual platform. Which is more self-guided, a completely different platform. This also means that IF she goes on campus she would still need to finish that class virtually. I was not keen on it. But we did it anyway. It's been an absolute nightmare. She had Spanish 1 TWO years ago with not the most rigorous Spanish teacher. 

So, she's doing this class the past 2 weeks and the platform is not really compatible with ipads which is the device the school issued her and they assigned her orientation work when there was supposed to be other work and it was a clusterfuck. My kid cannot teach herself Spanish virtually. Sure, she can get it out of the way but if it is potentially harmful to her GPA, which is the point. I'm not blaming the school or the teacher, but learning a foreign language online is just not-it-chief. I'm breaking out in hives just thinking about it.  

I decided we needed to have a talk about it. I was worried about it because I didn't want to give her the impression that I thought she couldn't do it. She can do it but it will be a battle week in and week out. So I said, "Look, you have two options. I can hire a Spanish teacher to come once a week and teach you and work through your lessons or I can request that you drop it and you can take it in-person next year. So you'll have 3 classes senior year instead of two." She thought very carefully. "Honestly, I feel like it would be so much better for me to just take it in-person." I was like

Then, she has to submit some assignments through Schoolology and there were showing as submitted but blank on the teacher side so we've been working with technology. 

I don't like virtual school. I mean, we are making the best of it because there are no other options but it's just not ideal for certain kids. The schools are trying so hard. The teachers are so sweet and noble. "The children are going to get a robust virtual experience. It's going to be great!" I'm like:

Just give it to me straight. "It's going to be shitty. You'll need a lot of wine. Try not to jump off a bridge. It will be over someday....."  

I did a virtual school for a year with my youngest way before COVID. It was bad. Every morning I would wake up and suit up for a day of battling my 6th grader. I'm traumatized. 

She's supposed to go for a 2-week residency in November. My fingers are crossed. Every day I wake up I'm like, another day has passed. One day close to.....something. I am wishing my life away but I don't feel bad about it anymore because honestly, it's trash. Shit life right now, bro. 

We've made it to September. Half of my kids are back at school. Things are getting better-ish. I think. 

Little Did I Know Then

 

I can feel myself returning to some semblance of who I used to be. I can see interact with other people without feeling like I want to unzip my skin, jump out, and run away. I think I laugh and smile more. The other day, I found myself dancing in the kitchen while I was making dinner. 

As long as I don't think about it - this pandemic, the things that we have lost, I am okay. So, I avoid those things as much as possible. I check the news once a day, I play this stupid, mindless game on my phone and I fill my days with work, projects around the house and activities. I am slowly coming alive again. 

But the other day, I was at the grocery store and I had my headphones in and I'm rummaging through the dried beans and I hear, "Tralala...." and my blood run cold. There was this song my daughter discovered in February. In the last weeks of driving her to school, she played it every morning. I hadn't heard it in so long. It was like I was immediately back there, in the passengers seat as she drove to school. What an exciting time. We spoke of the upcoming pageant, things she would need from the prom, Governor's School acceptances.....There was so much hope and excitement then. I wondered if that was the last time she was happy. I wanted to throw up. Like, I thought It was okay but there I was in the middle of the grocery store having a full-on panic attack.

My youngest will return to school tomorrow. She is going in-person. She needs that. A few weeks ago, she came downstairs in the morning and was in a bad mood. She plopped down at the kitchen table. "What's wrong I asked her?" She just looked up at me with the saddest eyes and said, "I just want to go back to school."

"I know," I said. What else is there to say? It's happening tomorrow but my brain has not reconciled it at all. Logically, I know that school starts tomorrow but my brain is like screaming confused, "None of this makes sense to me!!!!" It doesn't make sense to me that she is going into high school because middle school didn't really end. Does that make sense? And there was no lead up to this school year. For the longest time, we didn't even know if she was going to go back to school at all and there was no real anticipation because you can't have hope or look forward to something that can be so easily taken away at any minute. 

There was no parent meeting or freshman orientation. There were no stores packed with parents getting back to school supplies. It's Septemeber, which is weeks after school should have started. There are no football games. In my head, I'm like, "There is a marching band competition we need to get ready for next week. Do we need more bottled water?" But there's not and we don't, and it doesn't matter anyway because that is something that we are not a part of anymore and it's weird and strange and my mind has not adjusted yet. 

The high school did post out a "welcome back video". I watched the first part of it - the empty hallways and an aerial view of the campus and I had a visceral reaction. Like, I felt physically ill. I have PTSD. I'm not making light of PTSD. I have it. I am fucking traumatized. The school represents loss for me, in so many ways. I'm such a little bitch. I hate it so much. Like I should be able to see a aerial video of the school without feeling like my insides are going to fall out. Ugggh. 

But, I will be at the high school twice a day - dropping off and picking up my freshman. So, maybe that will get better. Maybe it will force me to feel my feelings and deal with them instead of burying them in my dark place. We'll see. 

Here is an actual picture of me dropping off my kid at school tomorrow: 

This is also the anniversary week of 09/11. Which still, 19 years later, shakes me to my core. We always talked about 09/11 with the kids. Especially as they got older, it was such a traumatic thing. We would tell them what life was like at that time. The fear, the uncertainty, the feeling that things would never be the same ever again. How can you translate that feeling that the world is ending to someone that has never experienced it before? But I don't have to now. Now they know that feeling. 

I have spent the past few months, purging and organizing my house. I was browsing through my high school yearbook and this page just did it to me: 

Doesn't that just make your heart stop?

My oldest will have to pick up her yearbook next week. They decided to publish it in the fall this year so that spring sports could be included. 

I am kind of afraid to see it. I'm going to look at it because I spent the $75 but it's going to be rough. PTSD things. 

But, we made it to September, and that has to count for something. We are going to Greenville at the end of the month. I have Airbnb credit. Fun fact - 1 night in Paris is the equivalent to a weekend in Greenville. My daughter will see her friends from the Governor's School. We'll go to Paris Mountain State Park and be in nature. I think it will be good for my soul. It will be nice to get far, far away from here where nothing triggers me. 

 

The Year There Was No Sex Ed

 

My 14-year-old is going back to school next week. She is excited about it. I am excited for her but I don't really care about it. Meet the teacher? Don't care. Processes and procedures? Don't care. What's actually happening? Don't care. My sadness and anger have faded into this weird numbness. I feel nothing at all. Which I love. Not feeling my feelings is 10-out-of-10 my favorite thing ever.  

There are things that need to be done. I cleaned out her book bag and all the things that had been there since that day in March that she went to 8th grade and never went back again. We purchased some basic school supplies. I thought about the things she missed at the end of the school year. "You didn't have sex ed this year," I said. She shrugged, "No one did." 

NO ONE had sex ed last year. That really hit me hard. Everyone that knows me, or reads this blog knows that sex education is my soapbox. I've worked in women's health for so long that it is ingrained in me. I was really triggered about it. 

The thing that really bothers me about sex ed in my state is that they only do it in middle school. After 8th grade, they get 0 sex education. ZERO. I feel like high school would be the prime time to share this information considering that about 40% of US high school students are sexually active. Those are 2017 numbers, but still. 

That means that the conversation needs to shift for high schoolers and we are doing them a huge disservice by denying them education and resources. My daughter last year came home and was telling me about this kid that had a side hustle selling condoms to other kids. Y'all - $20 for a 2-pack. TWENTY DOLLARS. That is like a 1,500% mark-up. I appreciate his entrepreneurial spirit but that just blew my mind. I told her, "Seriously, tell everyone they can get a free bag of condoms from the health department. All they have to do is walk-in at the front and ask. Tell everyone." I'm that mom. I worked with a lady at the health department that had teenagers and she left a whole jar of condoms on a table by her front door. It was a take- one -if -you -need- one -arrangement.  Like, I'm cool, but I'm not that cool.  

My daughter had a friend who became a father recently. Which blows my mind. I can see this child in my mind's eye -a mischievous middle schooler. Now he is a parent, we have that in common. It can and does happen. It's not just other people's kids. We have got to do better. 

We talk about sex a lot. Not like, a weird amount but when there is an opportunity, I take advantage of it. For instance, this whole WAP song was a great open door. I always have kids in my house and they were singing it and I looked into it. I am not the pearl-clutching type but even I was like: 

 This lady was really bragging about her WAP, honestly, that's a weird flex. I was like, "It's not supposed to really be like that. If someone needs a mop and bucket for their WAP, they probably need to see a doctor because their shit is not right," I said. Somebody get Cardi to the hospital and get her some IV fluid because she is probably dehydrated. It really was a great opportunity for us to talk about sex and how women are often objectified. They actually had really great insights and they all were in a consensus that easy access to pornography has ruined their generation. "I feel like the world would be better off if they just banned Pornhub." I thought Gen Z would be more laid-back and anything goes about it but they had really strong feelings about it, which surprised me. 

I think we owe it more to our children and especially our daughters to do better. One pet peeve I have about sex education is the gender bias in it. Males learn about wet dreams and girls learn about their periods. Women in society are objectified yet there is this underlying idea that sex is dirty and wrong - at least for women. Which is super damaging and confusing. Men are supposed to want and enjoy sex but not women. If they do, there is a lot of shame associated with that. Many women carry those attitudes into adulthood and it is horrible and damaging. 

I think that women are deserving of satisfying and empowering sex lives. They are deserving of experiences where they feel confident and empowered. But it's a journey. Sex is like riding a bike to the corner store. People around you are going to the store- and they are talking about how great it is. There are slushies and all the candy bars and it's the best. Then one day, you are like "I'm pretty sure I'm ready to ride my bike to the corner store. I finally got a bike, it's time." Then you get on the bike and you barely get out of the driveway. You certainly don't make it to the corner store. 

Men, men are made to go to the corner store. They spend their lives coming and going to the corner store and they make it look so easy. But for women, it's an art. But now you've already gotten on the bike, so you try again and this time you make it past the driveway but not exactly to the corner store. Sometimes you don't even enjoy riding your bike because you're worried about the way your calves look when you pedal or that your butt is too big for the seat. 

Unless you've walked to the corner store yourself, you don't even know if you are going in the right direction. You definitely should walk to the corner store. Sometimes the bike gets too excited and you fall off and they just head to the corner store without you, leaving you on curb. They come back with slushy in hand. "Wasn't it great at the corner store?" and you lie and nod say that you finished your slushy already so you don't damage your bike's ego. 

Maybe the bike has been watching the Tour de France and it has given the bike ideas of what the ride to the corner store should be. Maybe the bike wants you to be Lance Armstrong. But how can you be Lance Armstrong? Lance trained for that, he is a professional. That is not fair. Maybe the bike wants you to sit on handlebars. You don't have to sit on the handlebars if you don't want to. If this is your bike, THROW THE WHOLE BIKE AWAY. 

Then one day, you are going to find your bike. The seat will be perfect, the handlebars were meant for your hands. Your bike will never leave you behind and will make sure you go to the corner store together. And over time, things will seem easy. You will ride to the corner store so easily. You'll forget that your calves look weird when you pedal - you'll just enjoy the wind in your hair and the scenery. You will be able to pop wheelies and let go of the handlebars and even close your eyes. But it takes a lot of practice and time and that's part of the journey. 

Does any of that make sense? My point is - the expectation of what sex is and the reality are two completely different things and I don't think we talk about that enough and we really do a disservice but not talking about it. Women are entitled to have positive, enjoyable, consensual, and empowering sexual experiences. I think that is normal and healthy and important and I will always express that to my daughters. I don't care how much that hate it or how embarrassing it is.  I love this Ted Talk: 

I implore you- if your child missed out on sex education this spring. Talk to them. It is your job. Don't let them pay $20 for a 2-pack of condoms from a random kid in the high school hallway. Make sure they know that WAP is not normal. Don't let them walk about being uninformed. Balance messages about safety and consent with positive messages that don't foster shame and gender inequality. Happy bike riding!

 

And It Was All Yellow

 

I don't want to write about the present or the immediate future. It just makes me feel some kind of way. I've been looking back a lot more. There is something comforting about the past. It is etched in stone, unchangeable and familiar. Happy times passed are blessings that can be revisited when times are hard. When my children are struggling or having a bad attitude, I close my eyes and remember them little. How I would rock with my oldest and bury my face into her neck and smell her baby smell. How my youngest would crawl into my lap and rest her curls on my chest, and reach up and play with my ear lobes. It doesn't matter how old they are, I will always think of them like that. 

A smell, a song, a place can just bring you back to a moment in time that has passed. This week, I was driving home and Yellow came on the radio. It's mid-August and it was like I was suddenly in New York City. 

It's so weird that we live thousands of days and we don't remember most of them. But others we remember so clearly, every detail. Births, deaths, times that are especially happy and times that are especially sad. That day in New York was one of those days burned into my memory forever. 

It was the end of August 2001. A week before my husband left for the ARMY- which was August 29th. We decided that we wanted to go to New York City for the day. It was me, my husband, and two guy friends that we worked with. I was 17. He picked me up early that morning, in his white Saturn station wagon and we drove to Mount Holly. We loaded onto a coach bus. It was like a party bus with tables. We were so pumped. The boys mostly talked about going to the Virgin Records store to get some obscure CD. That is a very old-fashioned statement. 

It was only an hour and a half drive into Manhattan. We got off the bus and made our way to Times Square. I had been to New York City a few times before - mostly for school trips. I'd been to the top of the Empire State Building and seen a Broadway show but there was something different about being there - young and alone with my boyfriend and friends, just exploring the city. 

We made our way to Times Square. The streets were bustling with people and everything was just so BIG. All I did was look UP - at the forest of buildings. I pointed to the World Trade Center Towers. They seemed to reach up to the heavens. I recall pointing at them and saying, "Look! They are the tallest buildings in the city!" I remembered that moment as I watched them fall a few weeks later. He was already gone by then. 

It was a hot day- but not too hot. Not sticky hot. It was hot enough to feel like summer. There were so many little shops. I wanted to shop for clothes. The boys had no interest in that at all. There was a small clothing store just by Virgin Records. "I want to stop in here. I'll meet you there," I told them. They were like, "Okay." Then, I was all alone. 

I stepped into this clothing store that, I swear to you, was barely bigger than a walk-in closet. It had so many cute and funky things and I wanted to buy everything. It wasn't the kind of stuff you'd find in South Jersey. I fell in love with this cherry red sweater vest. I love that sweater vest. I still own it and I still wear it, multiple times a year. My 14 year old discovered it this year, and she low-key stole it from me. It's hanging in her closet right now. I'll get it back someday. 

Once I was done with my shopping, I headed over to Virgin Records. It was larger than life. You walked in and it was massive. There was an escalator! There seemed to be rows and rows of endless CDs. I meandered through the store, looking around for my boyfriend. I found him in the electronica section. He never went to raves but he liked the rave-type music. When we went to check out, there was a huge rack dedicated to Coldplay's Parachutes album. They were the hot, new band. Ever since then, whenever I hear Yellow, I am standing in the Virgin Records store in Times Square admiring the rack of Coldplay CDs again. 

We left Virgin Records and we ate. I don't remember what we had for lunch. That is the one detail that is missing. After lunch, we headed to Central Park. There was a man selling pretzels from a cart and there were people walking dogs, couples on blankets, and joggers passing by. We were getting tired, I was getting the post-lunch haze. We sought rest on a big rock. I sat on the rock next to my husband and leaned against him. The boys talked, but I just watched. The sky was crystal blue and the leaves and grass were this vibrant emerald green. There was a slight breeze and the tree branches swayed like they were dancing around us. The city towered behind the trees. There was a boy playing catch with his father. It's weird, that I can't tell you what I had for dinner last Tuesday but I will forever remember watching them. The boy had on a blue baseball cap, and squinted just slightly as he followed the ball into his glove. 

It is a moment I think I'll remember forever. I was happy and peaceful and in this place that so beautiful, it was like being in a movie. I could have stayed there all afternoon, but we moved on. 

We started to make our way back to where the bus station was. We stopped at Barnes and Noble. It was two stories high and had a much better selection than the bookstores of my hometown. I purchased the complete works of E.E. Cummings. 

By the time we left the bookstore, the sky had turned grey. Then, all of a sudden it started to rain. Hard. Torrential rain. We tried to get onto a bus, since that was the closet thing to us where we could seek shelter but we were immediately kicked off because we didn't have any bus tokens. 

There was a Hooters close-by and we made a run for it. When we stepped into the restaurant, we were all soaked and laughing. There was barely anyone there, it was that weird time between lunch and dinner. We decided to stay and get a snack and wait out the rain. We were seated at a table near the bar. There was a middle-aged man sitting there. 

We sat down and talked and were just being ourselves and the man seemed interested in us. He asked us questions. "Where you kids from?" in a thick, stereotypical New York accent. "You kids like MTV?" he asked. Of course we did. You weren't a real teenager if you didn't come home from school, grab a snack and sit down to watch Total Request Live with Carson Daly. We told him that we did. "You know what I call it?" he replied. "I call it EMPTY-V. Get it?" and he laughed and laughed at his own joke. It was a dad joke and none of us laughed with him. He talked about "young people today," not in a way that was offensive per se, but there was something about the decline of morality that bothered him that was reflected in us. 

It has always been that way. Every generation thinks that theirs was better than the current one. The youth are vilified in a lot of ways and discounted for their lack of wisdom. But it's not their fault, and it wasn't ours. When you are young you don't know what you don't know. When you are young, deep down you feel like you'll be that way forever because it's all you've known your entire life up until then. We were young and wild and free that day and nothing that man said to us could have changed that. 

It did stop raining and we made our way back to the bus station, dodging puddles and trying to shrug off the underlying anxiety of missing our ride home. We piled into the bus and collapsed into the seats, tired from our day of exploring the city. The ride home seemed shorter than the ride there. I pulled my book from the bag and read the entire way. The boys i mean are not refined was my favorite: https://genius.com/E-e-cummings-the-boys-i-mean-are-not-refined-annotated

The boys certainly were not refined then and I don't imagine they are much more now, 20 years later. 

It was dusk by the time we rolled into Mount Holly. We unloaded the bus and loaded into the station wagon. We listened to the new Gorillaz CD the whole way home. My husband had this HUGE binder of CDS. I swear it weighed 10 pounds, sheet after sheet of shiny circles. His collection was enviable. The only good part about him leaving for the AMRY was that he was going to give me his binder of CDs for safekeeping. We laughed and joked around the entire way home. We were back in town before my curfew so I went back to his house. Our friends left and we walked into the house and it was empty. It was unusual for that time of the evening that everyone would be gone. 

It seemed like a gift, the perfect ending to the perfect day. The lights in the living room were dim and the house was silent except for the raindrops on the roof. That was in August 19 years ago. 

That's strange to think - all the time between then and now is a blur. My children are almost the age I was then. The other night, I laid in bed with my daughter. She didn't protest. I studied her face. "You only have one more first day of school left. Like, in your whole life. That's crazy." She smiled. "You're getting old." She always tells me that. "It's weird because sometimes, in my head, I still think I'm the same as I was when I was your age. Then, when I am around you and your sister, I think No, I'm definitely not." I don't think she understood what I was trying to say, "Did you have wine tonight?" she asked. I hadn't. But she'll know what I mean someday.

I should feel different. I know more things. But like practical things. I can cook a turkey without checking the internet and I can file taxes and get stains out of blouses. But I actually know less. Things are less certain. That day in New York, everything was perfect and I was so sure about everything. Life is so black and white when you are young. Sometimes things are complicated only because they make them be so. For instance, teenagers with relationship problems are so funny. Like, you can just break up. Nothing will happen. You don't need to sell a house or figure out kids every other weekend. You only have to keep yourself alive and you have people facilitating that. Your body parts are still in their original places....You can't appreciate the simpleness of life until it gets messy. Until you have children of your own. And once-in-a-century pandemics happen. 

Maybe I am still that girl, walking down the sidewalk in Times Square, looking UP. I still have some of those things from that day with me - the boy, the red sweater vest, the poem. Even the Coldplay album- on Spotify, of course. 

Can Money Pay for All the Days I Lived Awake but Half Asleep?

                       

This pandemic has done something to me. That has been an ongoing theme, hasn't it? I am not silent about it - at all. But I have this underlying fear that it has changed who I am forever. I used to think that I was unshakeable. But I feel fragile now. I used to think I was funny and witty. But I don't feel like that anymore. I feel like I'm a shiny penny that got all rusty. I'm sprouting gray hair all of a sudden. The other day, my oldest was going through my hair. "Oh my God, mom! You have EIGHT gray hairs. I'm going to pluck them out." I shooed her away, "I'll be bald at this rate!" I'm getting older and the children are too. I feel it in my soul. 

Here we are in the middle of all this and I feel so strange. There are things that need to be done, that are coming at us fast. My oldest is a junior. She is starting school virtually next week, which I have all kinds of feelings about. This time next year we'll be getting ready to look at college applications. We'll really have to narrow down her list and schedule virtual tours. Virtual tours. Fuck. 

There will be ACTs and SATs and getting our finances in order for FAFSA. In 9 months, there will be senior pictures to schedule. My youngest has things to do. She'll need a portfolio and application materials finished by November for Governor's School for next summer. There will be permit tests to study for. She wants to go to a different high school than her home high school and she will need to take the ACT and do applications. These are things that need to happen, that we need to prepare for- pandemic or not. 

And yet, I don't even want to bring any of it up. To anyone. To myself even. I feel like just adjusting to what this school year will look like is taxing and overwhelming enough. We are in this weird holding pattern. A new normal. Except it's not normal at all. Can there even be a new normal for people that know and understand what life can really be like? What life was like before? I'm not sure. I can get used to things. I can get used to wearing a mask and I can get used to things being canceled and I can get used to the fear and the discord but I'm not sure that I can ever accept these things as being normal. I really struggle with that. 

I feel like I am living in a haze. Where time seems suspended. It's like waking up from a dream and opening your eyes and for just a moment - you don't know who you are, where you are, what day it is, whether it's closer to day or night. Regardless, you are safe, you are in your own bed. But for just a few seconds, you don't have your bearings straight. That's what this is like. It's like being stuck in that moment. It's not bad or good. It's just strange. 

And then there is me. Here I am at the finish line of the raising up my children. I am 36 years old. Then what? Then I have this whole life to worry about my adult children? I'm going to re-invent myself. I'm going to start wearing funky shoes. That's going to be my signature thing. The lady that wears funky shoes. I brought these:

Maybe wearing fun, funky shoes will make me feel fun and funky. Maybe then I'll feel like I shiny penny again. 

I probably will dye the gray out. Or maybe do an Anne Bancroft type of thing? 

Maybe I'll write stories. About real people with a lot of mystery and a little bit of sex. Mostly to entertain myself and pass the time. 

I'll plant flowers and cook dinner for my husband. Maybe we'll be able to travel again someday. Maybe I'll go to Spain for a month and we can be strangers for a while. I need some adventure in my life. 

The point it is, I feel tired. I am not funny anymore. Everything is weird. The children are in a life-changing moment and I am in a crisis about what to do with the next 50 years of my life. I'll let you know if I ever figure any of it out.

Lift Me Up

         
July was long for us. In some ways, longer than March was. A lot of feelings, a lot of disappointment, a lot of pandemic fatigue. I have been unable to see a light at the end of this tunnel and that has been difficult. I have been marinating in it for some time now. How can we get through this time without any end in sight? How can I make sure my children can get what they need and keep them safe? How can I get to the other side of my anger if I feel like I am drowning in it?

I have spent a lot of time, being alone in my thoughts, reflecting and praying. I am grateful to my children. They keep me going. Even on days where I feel like everything is falling apart and I am at the very end of my rope, I will still get up and make balloon garlands for birthdays, and plan little outings, and make special meals. I read this thing about as mothers, we are the keepers of everyone's sadness and disappointment. That just resonated so much. It really is true. But the small things that I do to try to get the children excited (or distracted) and attempting to create some sort of normalcy has given me purpose.

My husband has been fabulous. He has really struggled this month too. Not openly, but in his silent kind of way. Parents are only as happy as their saddest child and the disappointment crushed him as well. We have been doing a really good job of supporting each other. If he is having a bad day or seems off, I make him get out of the house and take a walk with me. If I'm having a dark day, he'll step in and help with the housework or make me breakfast, and sometimes, he just rubs my back. It's his way of saying, "I know you are struggling, and I'm here and will walk through this with you," without saying anything at all. We've been really leaning on each other a lot and that is a blessing.

The last time I wrote a blog, I talked about how they were playing Christmas songs on the radio and I thought it was strange. That night, I was making Shrimp Scampi for dinner. I had the radio playing Christmas music, because why not? It was strange that it was on the menu that day because we ALWAYS have Shrimp Scampi on Christmas Eve. So, I'm cooking and singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and it felt weirdly like December 24th. I called my family in for dinner and placed the plates on the table and then went to shut off the radio.

"It's feels like Christmas!" my oldest declared. "I love Christmas" my youngest said. "It's really right around the corner," I said. "It will be fall before we know it." "Fall is my FAVORITE," my oldest said. It's all of ours. "OMG! Yesssss! Let's go all in this year. I'm buying all the pumpkin spice candles, we'll eat soup and do all-the-things." The girls got excited and started talking about all the fun things we do in September-December that covid can't cancel. Drinking hot chocolate and watching spooky movies, the corn maze (I think it will be open), carving pumpkins. We decided that if they cancel trick or treating, we'll still have a "party" with just us. We'll dress up and build a fire and listen to our Halloween playlist and eat sweets. We always watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on Thanksgiving, but if it's canceled we decided we'll watch the one from 2007. It's on Youtube. That way all the balloons will be from when THEY were kids. We'll make cinnamon buns and play games.

Of course, we'll do all the Christmas things. The drive-through lights are perfect for covid time, and there will be crafts and movies and food and the hope of a New Year around the corner. We don't participate in holidays with our extended families anymore, and so there is no loss there. We will do what we always do, celebrate quietly, just us. My brother-in-law told me once that "Everyone knows that I only care about my 4." Some would think this a rude or harsh thing to say, but I always appreciate people who speak the truth. He's right in a lot of ways. I used to dread the holidays, there used to be so stressful and awkward and terrible. I don't only care about my 4, but I care about my 4 the most, and unapologetically so. We are quite content in each other's company and I am excited about it.

While we sat at the table and talked about the approaching months, the darkness lifted a bit. My girls were EXCITED about something. In that moment, I decided that 2020 and it's stank coochie energy can go somewhere else. We are going away for a long weekend this week, to just have a reset. When we get back, I'm going to decorate for the fall. I don't care if it's August and 100 degrees inside. I am baking a pumpkin pie and pretending it's here already. We need that.

My oldest will start school virtually but they did approve her to go on campus for 2 weeks in November. I'm not counting on it AT ALL, but if it could happen, it will be good. I'm going to buy her a "Class of 2022" shirt for the first day of school and take her to a special breakfast. I've been connecting with other parents in the area to form "study groups" so the kids can interact and do their school work. She seems really open to it and while she's not excited about it, she seems to have accepted. We are going to do everything we can to make this special for her and pray that she gets a normal senior year.

My heart aches for the Class of 2021, many of them aren't going back. Some kids went to school on a random day in March and they never knew they would never go back to school again. I saw one child last week, a rising senior and he said he wasn't going back. "How are feeling about it?" I asked him. He shrugged. "Everything is ruined anyway." I worry about the kids. Not just the teenagers, all the young people. All of this is so hard, I pray for them.

We have elected for my youngest to go back to school face-to-face. They make you sign a liability waiver. People are really upset about the waiver. I've signed a lot of these waivers. When she did gymnastics, horseback riding, even trampoline parks have the "assume the risk of serious injury or death." It is not an easy thing. If I felt like my child could thrive and be a whole person and receive the education she needs virtually, I would keep her home. But that is not the case. I know I'll probably get shamed about this decision, but I've gotten shamed about a lot of my decisions and I honestly, don't give one f*ck.

We are holding on, for now. We are here. God is here. We are just doing the best we can.

I'm Not Sick, but I'm Not Well

On this week's edition of WTF.....No, really, I've been through the ringer this week. My daughter turned 16 last Sunday. We tried to make it special for her. We told her that she could have a small-less-than-10-people get together. We rented a party bus and they went to get tacos and then went downtown and had gelato at the Harbor and took pictures. Then they came back to the house and played games and had cake. Her friend's mom owns a bakery so she had this lavender cake with edible pearls. It was really cute. It was a good day.
\
Sunday was her actual birthday, and that is when shit really hit the fan. I woke up early to bake a cake and cleaned up. She was not in a great mood on her actual birthday, so that was a whole thing. My husband was annoyed. I tried to just be normal. I went downstairs to ice the cake. I was almost finished applying the pink icing and when I turned the cake, it literally just slid off the counter and exploded.

I went upstairs, defeated, to inform him that I was going to the store to pick up a cake. He was playing a videogame and I noticed it raining inside. I looked up and there was water coming from the ceiling - right above where both of our workstations and computer stuff is. We sprung into a mad dash - moving computers and monitors and all the things. 

We went into the attic and the air conditioner was leaking. Thankfully, our neighbor who installed it came over and discovered the issue and it was an easy fix but the attic and ceiling needed to be dried out and now we have to repair the damage. Which, let's be real, we're not going to do for a hot minute. 

Then my husband and daughter got into an argument. It was less than ideal. 

The next day, I had a massage scheduled. I needed it. I go once a month to a chiropractic office in North Charleston. I really like the therapist and I needed it after the day prior. I got there a few minutes early. I figured that I would sit in my car and answer emails for a few minutes. There was a man pacing the parking lot. I was vaguely aware of him but he wasn't bothering me. Then he stood 5 feet away from my car and just stared at me through the car window. I was spooked. I went to turn on my car to leave and he walked off. At that point, I just decided that I would go in and wait in the lobby. 

I walk up to the front door and I could see someone kind of standing in front of the door. I went to open the door and it was locked but this person's head turned and I came face-to-face with a lady with CRAZY meth eyes. Like, frightening. I was like:

I jumped and ran out to my car and hauled my ass out of there. I called my husband and was like. "I can't be 100% sure, but the think the people in the chiropractic office are being murdered right now." I explained what happened and he was like, "You need to call the police." I decided to call the office first and the front desk lady was like, "It's fine, the police are here, you can come back." Ummmmm.....Hell Naw. I found out later that the man pacing the parking lot was the boyfriend of the crazy meth eyes lady and they were walking down the road and he was about to beat her up and she ran into the office and they locked her in. North Charleston Soap Opera Things. 

After that, I went to the store to pick up some stuff for my daughter's serpentine belt. I get home and I apply the stuff on the belt and it worked. But when she took the key out it locked up the gear shift and the car didn't turn off. The shift release didn't work, the ignition was locked up. This has been happening periodically the past few months so we just decided to call it. 

I called to have it towed to the dealership, which thankfully is only 2 miles away. I told the man on the phone that the car could not shift gears. He's like, "That's fine." He showed up two hours later and is says, "We need to put the car in neutral." I said, "That's impossible." He looked at me like I was a stupid woman, "How am I going to tow it?" F*ck if I know, you are the towing person. I gave him the keys and he tried in vain to shift the car out of park. It wasn't happening. "I'm going to have to drag it onto the truck." Great. He hammered these shoes under the tires and dragged it up. I followed him to the dealership. 

He attempted to get the car off of the truck and, let me tell you, it was a process. All the service people were watching and it took almost 15 minutes to "ease" the car off the truck. Then, I went into the service center and they reminded me they couldn't even LOOK at it for a week. Which, doesn't matter really. It will just push the car bill into August. I usually do back-to-school shopping in August but I don't need to do that this year so it should even out. 

The next day, I got up and was trying to take down the birthday decorations and clean. My oldest yelled down the stairs that she was having an issue that sounded like a kidney infection. It wasn't an emergency but it was a we-need-to-go-to-urgent-care right now kind of things. So, I took her to urgent care. It was full of covid people so we sat in the corner for almost 3 hours until we could be seen. 

They brought us back and they were like, "Here is your covid test." Yeah, um, we actually don't need that. They were like, well we need to rule out covid and pregnancy. My daughter was so triggered. hahahaha. Nothing prepares you for that as a parent. I feel like anytime we go into urgent care for anything, that is something they check off the list. I could show up with my kid and say, "She fell down the stairs and is bleeding from her head," and they'd be like, "Okay, but we have to rule out pregnancy as a cause." We waited another hour and they prescribed her an antibiotic for an infection. When they closed the door she said to them under her breath, "Told you I wasn't pregnant biiiiiiiitch." I was like, "Can you not say bitch with the drawn-out i in my presence? Thanks!"  

I went home, made dinner, went to get her medicine and by the time I got home it was late. The next day was jammed packed with errands. I had so many "things" come up that I was way behind. I had to go to the grocery store because I had no food in the house. I had some meetings and commitments I needed to wrap up for the boards I was formally on. I literally was not home all day. But I got done what I needed to do, 

The next day, I was dedicated to cleaning my house and doing all my laundry. It was bad. That's what I did. I cleaned the shit out of my house. I was all done. I loaded the last plate into the dishwasher and ran it. Then water started pouring from the bottom of the dishwasher. I was triggered.

My husband offered to fix it but he had worked all-day. I told him I'd fix it in the morning. I had the same issue with it a few years ago when he was in Texas for a few weeks. It had a clog and I had taken it apart and fixed it all by myself. I felt confident about it. 

The next morning, that's what I did. I drained it and took it apart and cleaned out the clog. I was covered in disgusting dishwasher water, but it was fixed. I went to run a quick errand afterward and then I made myself lunch. After lunch, I decided I was going to spend the rest of the day relaxing on the couch. I was going to watch trash TV and play my game. I needed it. I had been on the couch for 15 minutes when I hear my husband urgently calling for me. I ran upstairs and my daughter was on the floor. He was trying to get her to stand up and she was screaming out in pain. She could not stand. 

"Pick her up and put her in the car. I'm taking her to the Medical University," I said. I started giving instructions to my youngest while I gathered some sweatshirts and bottled water. "I need her shoes, a phone charger and the medicine on the counter." She did what she was told to do. What a great kid. 100% helpful and amazing. 

We are so fortunate to live so close to an amazing children's hospital. I never take them there unless I am really concerned. In 13 years of living here, between 2 kids, I've only been 4 times. One of those time was an almost-weeklong stay with my youngest a few years ago. Thankfully there was no traffic and I got downtown in 14 minutes. I was zooming. The peds ER has moved, which I didn't know. I haven't been to the ER at the Med U in 5 years. A safety officer saw me turn around and she pulled up next to me. She said to follow her to the new ER entrance and I told her I was alone with my daughter and needed a wheelchair. 

I followed her to the entrance and someone came out with a wheelchair right away. She sobbed and screamed out in pain just getting from the car into the wheelchair. I just left my car in front of the hospital. I walked next to her and the man says, "Don't worry, we'll get you right down to labor and delivery." Bruh, for what? For her to give birth to a kidney stone? "Please take us to the pediatric ER." 

They were so great. We were in the non-covid part so there was no one there. They got us back right away. They gave her morphine which helped considerably. They did all the things that they do. They started and IV, took blood. Ordered imaging. I camped out in a chair and watched TV and we waited. They did an ultrasound of her kidneys and a UA. Her antibiotic they prescribed earlier in the week was not working and they suspected that she may have small kidney stones. They have her IV antibiotics and discharged her. We got there at 3 and left at 9:45pm. At that point, she was comfortable and we had a plan and an idea of what was going on, so I was relieved. 

We got in the car and I realized that I was STARVED. I hadn't eaten since noon and she hadn't either. It was late and the only thing I could think of that was open was Taco Bell. I pull up and ordered the only thing I like from TB, shredded chicken tacos. It was really slow. I think the workers were passing the dutchie between orders or something. We finally got our food and went home. When we opened the bag, my daughter said, "Ummm....this isn't our order." We ordered 4 tacos and there were 12 beef tacos. I don't like beef tacos from there. It kind of reminds me of wet dog food. I was so hungry, I ate the wet dog food tacos. I had to laugh. It was like an Alanis Morissette song...."It's like 12 beef burritos when all you need is a chicken taco....." LOL.

I woke up this morning a little scared, not going to lie. I had relax on the couch and drink coffee. Then, I got the text that her medicine was ready to be picked up. I got into the car and turned on the radio and Christmas music was playing. Then they were talking about the reindeer social distancing and all the elves wearing masks and I was super confused. 

Not sure what planet I'm living on right now. I feel like I'm living in some weird, shitty alternate universe. Surprisingly, I feel mostly okay. These are things that I can fix. I can fix a car, I can get my child medical attention, I can buy a cake. So, in the grand scheme of things, it's okay. Wish we hadn't crammed it all into one week but it just be like that sometimes, as the kids would say. 

I feel like my faith and mental fortitude is being tested. I'm trying to stay positive. Thoughts become things. I still have a whole lot to be grateful for. I think it will all work out.