...Came a Bubbling Pool

I woke up this morning with a bubbling, hot pool of magma sitting right behind my sternum.  No, it was not indigestion, but rather the epicenter of hormonal insanity brewing and bubbling itself into volcanic proportions.  A smart woman would have gone back to bed, but I nurtured this lava in my chest by feeding it coffee.  Half a cup in and I was sweating through my shirt while doing a crossword puzzle.  I am not talking about glistening or glowing or perspiring, I am talking full on sweat.  Sadly, I don’t even sweat like this when I work out.  The news annoyed me, nothing tasted good to eat so I ate a lot of nothing that tasted good and I sweated.  The boy came downstairs and started his incessant plea for video anything but I made him eat first and sit with me while I sweated at the table.  He is too young to recognize the signs of Mom about to go crazy and kept poking me with the video stick.   Bill wisely retreats when I say that I feel hot inside and the girls recognize and understand the signs and keep small.  Not the boy.  Poke, poke, and poke.  Thirty minutes later we were having it out over Plants vs. Zombies and he stomped upstairs and I stomped downstairs accomplishing my mission to share the lava-like anger inside. 

KRAKATOA! (yes, Spongebob reference)

I am at this wonderful stage in my life where my body that has wanted to make babies for the last twenty plus years is now slowing shutting down the baby making machinery.  What a mess of hormones this turns out to be!  Did you know that this whole heading towards menopause can take upwards of ten years or so? Decade of fun!   Perimenopause they call it.  Peri – makes it sound flowery, delightful, quiet and soft.  No.   It is hot lava behind your chest, it is crying HUGE wet tears at commercials on TV, and it is like feeling like you have the rest of your life and no time left at all at the exact same minute.  It is shedding the hair on your head like a dog while growing it in new places all over your face.   It is flying into a rage over something small and apologizing profusely the next minute.  It is working out like a fiend and then having to stretch just to take the garbage out the next day.  It is a mess.  A hot, hot mess.

I figure that at forty, I am probably down to ten viable eggs and every time one is released, I know it.  I am bringing my A game on a Wednesday night because my body is screaming “THAT’S IT, WE ARE DOWN TO NINE GOOD EGGS!”   These eggs are also competitive: they find it necessary to compete with young women in my house and there is no rhyme or reason or pattern to craziness like there used to be.  I am afraid I am going to wind up being one of those women on the hormone replacement commercials that they only show between 5 and 7am and not care that I am one of those women on the hormone replacement commercials.

 

I should have known something was amiss in the dollar spot at Target yesterday when the plethora of Hello Kitty started a rant inside that wouldn’t stop.  I don’t understand Hello Kitty: is she a cartoon or anime or the gateway drug to anime?  Usually I don’t give her much thought at all but this time I was hopped up and starting to get hot inside. I seriously could have punched something I felt so annoyed by being surrounded by that stupid somewhat cat face. Which, by the way, is missing eyes or a nose or something INTEGRAL to a face.

I did go and work out and that helped, but the kids came with me and that did not help.  And now I am sore from working out so I need to stretch.  And then as long as I am already on the floor, I will curl up in the fetal position and weep while declaring that really, nothing is wrong.  Good times, good times.

The Dodgy Side

We live in a lovely, tree-lined neighborhood.  Houses are well kept, fences maintain our privacy and there is even greenbelt areas sprinkled throughout the houses.  There is an award winning school in the middle of the neighborhood and a large community pool at the entrance.  Lovely, yes?  One would think.  Lovely for those who get to use such services, ("The Others"), but a matter of whaththeheck for the rest of us, i.e. those of Us on the dodgy side.

Dodgy.  100% dodgy.

When we built our house, we were fresh off of selling our Frisco home for a loss and you would have thought we spent more time researching the area but we did not.  "Ooh" we said.  "Look at all the trees!" we said.  And we bought.  We drove by an elementary school so of course that is where our children would go.  It was not even a half mile from our home, so we could walk, right?  Wrong.  Due to gerrymandering, or what I like to call money changing hands, our house and those that followed would go to a different school district.  Our children would not walk a half mile to school; they would be bused four miles away.  There are houses in the neighborhood where the district line actually cuts through the house and makes for all sorts of confusion where the kids should go to school.  I would like to know what kind of tequila-soaked, cigar smoking night that line drawing followed.  I used to be pretty upset about the whole school issue, but over time have realized it is a blessing that my kids are where they are.  The girls are rock stars, the boy gets the help he needs and we have all met great friends.  Score one for the dodgy side!

Next up, the pool.  Apparently when our houses were being built, our builder did not want them to be part of the rest of the neighborhood's HOA.  I am led to believe that our builder was a giant jackass about not being part of it and The Other's HOA people left with a disdain for not only him, but the section of houses he was building.  Our salesperson told us when buying the house that she was certain we could join the large HOA if we wanted to and of course use the pool.  She lied.  Forays made to The Others about such a matter were shot down immediately with scorn and derisive laughter.  Alright, we don't need your HOA.  We will make friends with some of The Others and join them as they partake in your precious pool.  And we have.  We spend more time in that pool than some members, I am sure.  We are befouling it with our dodgy side germs.  You can gate us out, but we are wily, sneaky creatures, we will find our way in.  Score two for the dodgy side!  

Other things that do not make it over onto the dodgy side include utilities and governmental improvements.  Yes, we have electricity and running water but we do not get AT&T U-verse.  I kid you not when I say it stops, actually stops, two doors down.  You will know exactly where if you are driving because you will feel your car go da-dunk as it lowers onto the pavement on our side.  Why? Well, when road crews came through to repave a few years ago, they stopped exactly two doors down.  My friends among The Others like to joke that a big iron gate comes down when the sun goes down to keep Us in and protect The Others at night.  They also like to laugh that our garbage can has "Shits" spray-canned down the side of it.  That is how it was dropped off to us in our brand new home.  Shits.  I am sure that would have been an immediate source of fining over with The Others.  We pay the same ridiculous taxes as The Others and yet are treated like the communist bloc by the government.  

With summer upon us, I was weary of my children the other night and said "go play outside."  I was met with derisive laughter and scorn.  All over this neighborhood, kids are playing outside: they are kicking the can or riding bikes or playing catch in the street.  Except on the dodgy side.  I sent the kids on a reconnaissance mission last night to be sure and they confirmed that not one child was seen playing outside.  It is not that hot so I can't understand why.  It is summer!  Kids should come back at twilight smelling like Off!, with sweaty heads, skinned knees and fresh mosquito bites.  Our street ends in a cul-de-sac and branches into two other cul-de-sacs so street play should ensue.  My friends among The Others live in a cul-de-sac and their kids are out every night playing.  I told SG to grab the soccer ball and her brother and go knock on their friends' doors and start a game of kickball in the top cul-de-sac.  She looked at me in horror because 12 year old girls do not start anything; someone might notice them and they might be different.  Horror!  The boy looked at me with scorn because a soccer ball is not a kick ball.  A million pardons.

I am buying a kick ball this weekend.  Actually, two in case one goes down the drain.  If I have to go up to the top cul-de-sac and play kick ball with my kids until someone else notices and sends their kids out, I will.  I am going with "if I do it, they will come".  Then when the kids come, I can sit in a lawn chair in the driveway and drink beer and thereby lower the median home value for The Others.  

Can't Find Any Fault... in Our Stars

Hater gonna hate and I wanted to be a hater.  I wanted to leave the movie theater disappointed, ripped off and passionately hating Hollywood for ruining a good book.  I wanted to list the things that they left out and snark on the things they added in.  I wanted to lament character choices and bemoan the dialogue that they omitted.  I did not get a chance to do any of these things because they did a great job turning a beautiful book into an equally beautiful movie when they made The Fault in Our Stars. 

Sigh.

If you haven’t read a Fault in Our Stars by John Green, do it now.  (Quick synopsis: kids, cancer, love and more) There will be a long line up for it at the library because every teen girl and her mother and maybe even a dad or two are reading it.  After you have read it in two days, max, because you couldn’t put it down, devour the rest of John Green’s writings.  The man remembers what it is like to be a teenager and he makes you remember it as well.  I wish John Green wrote back when I was a teenager because he writes from a male perspective that would have been very useful in trying to figure out boys back then.  Judy Blume was great for telling us what we were thinking while we waited for our periods, but I am struggling to remember a book of hers with a boy as the main character.  Wait!  There was one; I think his name was Tony?  Anyway, John Green gets it.  He remembers the angst, the passion, the nobility crowded into the mind of teenager who can’t even drive himself around yet.  The parents take a secondary role in his books and friends are the ultimate to these teens because really, that is how it is in real life as well.  Read him.  You will love him or at least like him and you will find yourself a little nostalgic and a little encouraged at the same time.  Parental warning:  his teens are not perfect.  They drink, they smoke, they swear, they make out, have S-E-X, and they make bad choices, therefore acting like real teenagers.

I read The Fault in Our Stars back in the fall.  Girls at school were telling me “Ms McMahon you HAVE to read this!”  They quoted from it and held their hearts and I thought alright, alright.  I read it in two days (max) and poor Bill came in right when I finished it and he held me as I cried the front of his shirt wet.  Wet.  I had a book hangover for days because I couldn’t get these characters out of my mind.  I recommended this book to everyone who asked for a good book and then slowly I moved onto other books and let its magic hold on me diminish.  That is, until the trailers for the movie started playing.  Sigh.  I was now determined to have SG read it so we could go to the movies.  She used to be the most voracious reader but has moved onto anime (what?!) and manga (why?!?).  Ew.  I wanted to break into her little world of big eyed characters and have her read about big hearted characters instead.  She refused, so I read it aloud to her, and Bill.  And to the boy when he listened, which was not often because it was too much for him.  It was not the easiest book to read out loud.  There were big words I struggled over which made them laugh and there were scenes I wanted to skip over because it made me embarrassed to read them to my 12 year old.   But I took a deep breath and plowed on and she had the decency to not look right at me while I read them.  It is also very hard to read through your tears; really dragged those last five chapters out.  I knew what was coming but sobbed again.  SG sobbed an entire couch pillow wet.  Um and Bill cried too because he is a good man with a soft heart. But she hugged me, hard, when we were done as we laughed and cried and she went to bed exhausted and she thanked me for reading it to her. 

We were hesitant about the movie.  We learned early on (The Tale of Despereaux) that the books are always better than the movie, always.  We had recently been disappointed with the film adaptation of Divergent, so we went in cautiously.  We were blown away.  Within fifteen minutes, I stopped looking for and caring about any difference that the movie had made to the book.  I didn’t care that Augustus Waters in the book had blue eyes but this Gus had brown.  He was Gus.  They used dialogue straight from the book.  They had my favorite line of the whole book about robot eyes in there.  They portrayed the relationships throughout the book seamlessly on the screen as well.  They captured youth and hope and love so perfectly.  As an audience, we laughed, we tensed up and then, we cried.  Oh my gosh we cried!  SG cried a cup holder full of tissues and then more.  I cried early on, you know what is coming but you can’t brace yourself enough to stop the tears from falling.  We wept until we were raw and empty. As I listened to SG cry her heart out, I felt like a good/bad mom.  Good that she can empathize and become invested in these things, bad for exposing her to it.  At twelve, she hasn’t had her heart broken but now she knows exactly what it feels like.  “Mom my heart is broken!” she wailed as we drove home.  Agreed, I thought. Mine felt a little achey too. She went to bed exhausted and I can only hope this all translates into her reading books with chapters again.

So read the book.  Then see the movie.  You will not be disappointed.  You will be raw and empty, but not disappointed.  You may cry your eyes dry, but you will not be disappointed.  Take it from a hater who wanted to hate, you will love it.

Silence IS Golden!

It is the last day of school!! I have not been this happy about a last day of school in about; oh well, a lot of years.  I woke the kids up singing songs about it being the last day of school.  Neither one was impressed.  We had an impromptu dance party to celebrate and everyone went on to their respective schools. I only had to work an hour today.  Happy Summer to me!  

When I found out I was only going to have to work an hour today, I first thought that I should pick up the kids or do something crazy, mom fun like that said "WOOHOO SUMMER!".  Thankfully, I quickly came to my senses and instead you can find me at home right now. Alone.  Enjoying something I will not have anytime soon: silence. Silence will not be heard in this house for a long time.

Thank you.  I will.

 In the beginning of summer we go outside and bring our noise with us.  We swim, we play in the driveway, and we go to the park.  But as summer drags on and it gets too hot for man or beast, all of our noise will be inside.  There will be a TV or radio or video game and they will be on loud.  There will be the slam of the door opening, closing or my yelling "Close the door!".  There will be whining, there will heavy sighs, there will be moaning.  There will be yelling: yelling at each other, yelling at the dogs, yelling for me MOMWHEREAREYOU?  I am hiding in my closet trying to find one minute of silence, that is where I will be.

It won't be all bad noise.  There will be laughing, please God, lots of laughing.  There will be the squeal of preteen girls jammed four to a bedroom squeaking and squealing and laughing until they cry.  Because everything is funny, everything has to be relived and everything must be screamed at the top of their lungs in that small room.  There will be boy laughter that starts with "dude!" and ends with a fist bump and goes right into lengthy video game discussion.  There will be adult laughter over summer drinks because really, everything is very funny and laugh-out-loudable over summer drinks.  There will be dinner conversation where everyone talks over each other until Bill and I lock eyes and smile thinking we made this loud mess.  Or we lock eyes and question how many more days til school starts?  There will be teen laughter; secretive and almost elusive and we will strain to hear more.  There will be friends over adding to the din and requests for lemonade, food, more food, more everything.

There will be the daily questioning of where are we going today?  What will be fun today?  Thankfully I have Adventure Mondays in my pocket courtesy of a good friend who is a fun mom and I can tag along, slacker-like, as we all have fun, at least once a week.  There will be road trip planning and with it a million questions of where is this?  What can I pack? How long will be gone?  What about the dogs?  

There have been many summers when I have braced myself for the onslaught of summer and its noise.  I planned camps or weeks or days down to the minute. I don't feel like I am bracing myself this year. I feel like my silence today is giving me time to mentally prepare for summer and after two hours of it, I say bring it.  Bring the noise.  Bring the stickiness of summer with its watermelon faces and lemonade on the counters by kids who pour while watching TV.  Bring the smell of sunscreen on warm skin and chlorine bleached hair.  Bring the smell of BBQ on the breeze, however warm and stagnant that breeze might be.  The boy and I will be on the back deck breathing it in.  

You can almost smell how hot it is.

I think it was three or four years ago you could ask me at any day during the summer how many days it was until school started.  "Eighty-six" I said as school ended that year, or "We are down to twenty!" I cried jubilantly.  However, if you asked me right now how many more days, I would say not enough.  I hope this is still my answer in August.  Hopefully if I tuck away just a few pockets of silence between then and now, it will be.

Guard Your Heart

Good grief, look at this picture.  It looks like I have seen a ghost.  Or someone just killed my best friend.  Or my best friend has been killed and I am being haunted by their ghost.  What caused this haunted, tight, vaguely constipated face?  It was not a ghost or a death that left my face like this, it was simply surviving my first two weeks of working at a high school.  This picture was taken early in the morning after our usual crowd of 150-200 or so left and I had some time to sit for a yearbook picture.  I think it does a great job of conveying how totally overwhelmed and slightly scared I felt being surrounded by teenagers.  It also does a great job of showing that I should not wear a scoop neck anything, ever.  I think if they were to take the picture today, it would be difficult to get one of me looking at the camera as I would be having two separate conversations going on and probably handing someone something and telling someone else that yes that they could use my computer to print.

Those first few weeks of school were a blur.  I will now admit to feeling very nervous about being surrounded by teenagers at first.  There were just crowds of them and I didn't know any of them and I was not a teacher so I didn't carry the weight of being in control of their grades.  I was also initially hesitant to tell them to stop bad behavior. I sicced my librarian on them because it made me feel icky.  Eventually I got over my fear of confrontation and engaged.  Enough so that I feel confident that the very image at the top of the page is being defaced by Sharpies in many yearbooks as we speak.

Adding to my sense of HOLYCRAP, was the fact that there were Juniors and Seniors assigned as Library Aides to us almost every period.  I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do every day and now I had kids I was in charge of as well.  I had kids who loved the library and loved to read and happily shelved.  I had kids who were killing time to graduation and would push in chairs and then fall asleep for the rest of the period.  I had kids I didn't know what to do with and kids who could be a lot to handle.  The good thing about these kids is that they showed me that teenagers are like awkward adults.  Slowly I began to realize that if I felt uncomfortable engaging them in conversation, that they were wishing I wouldn't even try.  This made me talk to them even more. And slowly,they would engage in conversation back with me. I learned about their classes,their jobs, their plans for college and they learned that I was someone who would listen, someone who was not shocked by their language and someone who laughed alot and let them use the period to do their homework.  Other kids became familiar as they checked out books all the time or asked me what was a good book to read.  There were siblings of kids who told them to go to the library, it was a good place to hang out.  We accumulated a motley sort of crew who began to know each other and us and made the day a lot of fun.  

And now that we are eight school days from graduation, I am feeling a little verklempt thinking of these kids flying out of my safe little library nest.  They are more than ready: they are skipping classes, rolling their eyes at assignments, weary of their nestmates and just ready.  They are too big for the nest, too big for the halls of high school, they are ready to go.  Remember that feeling of knowing that the rest of your life was just days away?  I have talked about my favorites before and I have some perched and ready to go.  One I totally got ripped off on because she is a freshman and I should have three more years with her, but she is moving.  Rude. 

I promise I fed them mostly cookies, no worms.

As I begin to feel very sad about watching these favorites graduate and move on, instead of acknowledging that it has been a good year and that I will miss them, I keep saying next year I will not invest in anyone.  Especially not seniors.  Come in and get you involved in their lives, get you to care and to worry and to laugh and cry with them and then they are gone?  Who signs up for that? I told the few Juniors I have that I will carry them over into next year but no new kids let into the fold.  They say "yeah right Ms McMahon".  As if they know me better than me.  That I will still be feeding the ones who I overhear are hungry or running interference for ones who need it. That I would be willing to help with History and English homework but just still stare at the Math homework along side them.   

Maybe because it was my first year I just cannonballed into the deep end of the pool with these kids.  I never stopped to think that they wouldn't still be there.  They have made me laugh and cry, taught me new words as I tell them which ones they cannot say in front of me.  They have made me remember what it is like to be 16 or 18 or just a teen.  I have watched them fall in love and break up.  I have seen them pass without trying and fail miserably.  They have been named in our family dinner conversations and in our extreme cases, offered up in our prayers.  And now they are on their way to the rest of their lives and I am so happy for them and sad at the same time.  I will miss them.  I will miss knowing what is going on in their lives and miss knowing that I can help.  They have brought out the very best and the very worst in me and I hope I did a little of the same for them.  (the best anyway)  Next year, I will wade in a little more slowly, especially with seniors, because this time I didn't know to guard my heart and they have left their mark on it.    

To Clean or Have Cleaned

If cleanliness is next to holiness, then as for me and my house, we are knocking on the gates of hell.  I should be too embarrassed to write about how dirty my house is, but somehow I am not.  We pick up, we straighten, we vacuum and wipe things down but never all at once and not with great enthusiasm.  Dog hair is accumulating, dust has taken over and I don't even want to think about the bathrooms.  The other night on my way up the stairs I noticed that they had not been vacuumed in a very long time.  So long that I was able to scrape the dog hair into a pile on each step as I walked up.  That counts as cleaning, right?  The kids come in and dump everything in the kitchen.  It is so much fun to cook dinner while stepping over backpacks and trying to put clean dishes away.  It normally takes so long to put things where they belong that any intention I had to clean was wiped out.  

Hmm, perhaps I am guilty of kitchen cluttering as well.

Bill will go into white tornado mode where he cleans everything in his path with bleach and pure muscle.  He doesn't stop until every scrap piece of paper has been trashed, he has lost half a lung from bleach fumes and he is exhausted.  The kids and I know that there is no helping the tornado.  Just stay low and out of his way and when he stops muttering how disgusting we are and sits down it is safe to come out.  He is working six days a week lately so the tornado doesn't have time to come out.  I have attempted my own tornado but my spins out a lot faster than his does.  He and I both refuse to ever clean the kids' bathroom again.  Dirty.  Dirty, messy, toothpaste and soap everywhere disgusting children.  The boy is the worst of them all.  Boys under twenty should be allowed in outhouses only, I am not really sure that they deserve indoor plumbing.

I know, all these kids living here, they should be put on cleaning, right?  My mom used to enforce the Saturday morning march on us as kids.  As soon as cartoons ended at 10am, she was right there pushing a dust cloth in our hands or a vacuum or sending someone upstairs to clean the bathroom.  We would try to limp our way through, but she would actually check and make us clean again if it was not done right.  No one went anywhere until the house smelled like Pledge and  sparkled.  We showed her though; whoever was dusting with the Pledge would make sure to accidentally spray the wooden stairs as well.  Good luck staying upright when you hit the bottom two stairs with your sock feet!  We have tried the march here with the kids but they are craftier than we were as kids, or lazier or smarter or our house is too big, and it just doesn't work.  

When I stayed at home, I felt it was my job to keep the house clean and now that I am working I feel like someone else should be cleaning it but somehow that person is still me or Bill and we are tired.  I guess it is time to hire someone to clean it but I struggle a little with paying money we sort of have to have someone do something we could do ourselves.  I know Dave Ramsey would be shouting "SAVE YOUR MONEY, CLEAN AS A FAMILY."  He also advises never buying a coffee out and finding joy in paying off debt.  I am sure being debt free would be lovely but I also don't want to live without joy or Starbucks trying to get there.  

Summer is upon us and that means kids at home using a different glass ten times a day.  Pool towels and wet swimsuits strewn throughout the house in varying piles of dampness.  Shoes kicked off at the front door, the back door, in the middle of the living room and not always as a pair.  That seems like enough to stay on top of without adding toilet cleaning and dusting, right?  I would like to enjoy the kids this summer and not be a total screaming shrew about how messy and disgusting they are.  I have daydreams about being out with them having fun while cleaning people clean our house and coming home to clean.  Clean kitchen, clean bathrooms and a clean house all at once.  That would be a happy, happy day.

I guess it is time then to pull the plug and hire someone.  Time to admit that while I like a clean house, I just am not getting it done on my own.  The kids will have roommates or spouses one day that will get onto them about their mess and they will learn.  That will be about the time Bill and I downsize into something we can white tornado together.  Until then I guess we pay for the peace of mind a clean house can bring, even if it makes me feel a little guilty. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to clean before I can have cleaning people over.

Weary

This first year of working at a high school has been a year of learning for me.  I have learned words I hope to never hear again. I have learned that I am a good listener and that kids like to talk to me.  I have learned that I have strong opinions about mandated testing but that I can't share them because I would like to continue my career in education.    I have learned more new things this year than in the past five years combined.

Currently I am learning that May = Weary.  Everyone is weary.  Kids are testing and are weary.  It is beautiful outside and they are weary of being cooped up indoors.  They are weary of their friends, they are weary of their teachers, their parents, themselves.  The kids who are failing are weary of being told they are failing. The adults are weary too.  They are weary of trying, of reaching out, of extending and helping.  They are weary of each other and conversations have gone a little stilted and stale.  They too are weary of being cooped up inside and I think every one of them has a tally of exactly how many hours are left in the school year.  I used to only wear jeans on Friday at the beginning of the year.  I am wearing jeans almost every day and I am not alone.  Last week we had alumni T-shirt day and I picked my alumni Tshirt out of the laundry hamper and wore it.  At the beginning of the year, I would have picked it out and washed it, but I didn't even see if it passed the sniff test.  Weary, and gross.

Her shirt looks clean.

I have also had a hard time leaving my work kids at work.  Their problems stay with me and I want to help, I want to fix it and I want them to be better.  Happier.  Healthier.  Stronger.  Lately their problems have been more than I know what to do with.  These problems have been bigger than my knowledge, bigger than my carefully chosen words and advice can help and definitely bigger than my soft heart can handle.  My emotional weariness has been evident to everyone.  I guess I could not get involved or invested, but what is the point of working with kids if you are not invested or involved with them? 

I thought that I might just creep through the rest of the school year with weariness as my new uniform, but that changed today.  Today I had off.  I needed to use up some personal time and I have made the most of it.  I have had two appointments taken care of, lunch with my handsome husband, cleaned a bathroom, prepped dinner and will bake at some point.  That is a productive day! Being productive didn't change my mind set from weary though, it was something my trainer at appointment one said.  I was explaining how weary I have been feeling and she said "isn't it all about effort?".  Isn't it all about effort?  We have to try, we have to put things in if we expect to get things out.  Life can get us to where we just muddle through, where we stop trying or challenging ourselves and where we endure rather than exceed.  This made me remember that when you make a little effort, it will snowball and grow into bigger efforts.  That things don't get better or easier all at once, but slowly, over time.  

I don't want to endure the next twenty one days of school, I want to live them.  I want my kids to make an effort and live theirs too. I want my school kids to tell me all their terrible things and I want to hug them and tell them yes, life does suck, but it will always, eventually get better.  It has been a long year, but it is not over and I will stop dragging myself around and wearing weary as an accessory.    Wearing weary around is exhausting and I think I can do better.  I will start small, like not wearing shirts out of the hamper and let it grow bigger, like maybe wearing a skirt.  (double effort as that requires shaving).   

I overheard colleagues talking about their own weariness last week and one said "Yes, but that is why we are professionals".  Weary made me forget that. Effort, professional, twenty one more days.  Let's get it done!