WE MADE IT! Week Twenty-five brought us the glorious last day of school. Actually, the day wasn’t really glorious. It was hot. And long. But it’s over now, and I don’t need to check my work email for a few weeks.
The trouble is, every day is very much a blank slate now. You see, I’ve been moving through the era of COVID-19 with two quite sizable distractions. 1) I’ve been writing a book (what??), and 2) I’ve continued working, albeit in a much less satisfying way. But I’ve finished my book (what???!) and the school year is now over. Every day is full of 24 unaccounted hours and I have to figure out how to best make use of them. It feels like an opportunity in some ways; in other ways it feels like a burden.
It would be one thing if I had unlimited hours to do and experience and live and love. But: most shit is still closed; the stuff that’s open isn’t necessarily safe for me; I don’t know how to live this life; my non-boyfriend (ex still sounds too harsh) is still living with me.
Dr. Erion (see Sunday, Week Four) and I were messaging about the end of the year. He asked how it felt being done and being able to sleep. My responses:
Being done is a huge relief. But also, with the world as it is, a giant gaping hole in the day.
Sleeping is lovely at first. But after two days you start to feel like you’re just depressed haha
Sunday
That’s exactly how I feel, Willow.
Monday
Bailey Boo!!! Popped over to my parents’ after a long morning at the school printing progress notes, blowing up balloons, and working the student council photo booth.
Tuesday
Day two of pick up/drop off at the school was a little better. The kids were being sent through the stations inside and outside the school a few at a time so social distancing could be maintained. This resulted in lulls between students coming to the photo booth. After Monday, Christina and I came up with a plan to make the day more enjoyable.
For the record, I won.
Christina would probably want me to add that I only beat her by four points. She would probably also want me to add that she beat me by about thirty points in the second game. But the second game doesn’t count because she accidentally cheated.
She used a blank tile that wasn’t blank at all! She just had it turned upside down. The beauty of it all is that we noticed because she was trying to call me out for using another blank tile when two were already on our board (there are only supposed to be two blanks in the entire set of tiles). The word she’d created with it had given her a considerable boost. So we’ll go ahead and call that game a time (Aren’t I so gracious??)
Wednesday
Holy heat. The sixth grade transition drive-thru was two hours of us standing in the sun (usually with masks on) while we plastered on smiles and acted SO EXCITED for the fall.
I think the sixth graders and their families appreciated it, so I’m happy we did it. But let’s be honest. Ain’t nobody excited for the fall. At least not right now. We’re just happy the slog to the end of the year is finally over. We can turn off our computers and take a deep breath. It’s over. We made it.
Thursday
These flowers had good timing. They were waiting for us when we came back from strawberry picking…
Twas my mom’s 61st birthday and the first time ever that my brother and I bought her flowers. Don’t misunderstand, we always try to be good children and show appreciation, it’s just that my mother is better than Martha Stewart when it comes to all things home and garden and has always had bouquets of her own creation. But my brother found a company with a philosophy we could get behind and one we thought our mom would appreciate and we had this scent to the house.
Truthfully, it was our intention to order the flowers for Mother’s Day… but we may have accidentally missed that.
Friday
The long-armed kii. This paw slipped no less than four times while Sam was dozing off.
Saturday
Look. At that. NOSE!