Delay

The text came through five minutes ago: "The school district will be on a two hour delay tomorrow due to the sub zero temperatures." 

I exhaled.

Another morning of not having to leave the house until after 9. Of extra snuggles with my kids on the couch before they go to school. A little more of this frigid January that I can spend doing what January is meant for: resting.

This is our 3rd delay this week and our 4th in two weeks. I feel a bit of a wash of shame at my delight over it. Ashamed of the privilege implied by being able to spend the extra two hours at home instead of scrambling for child care. Ashamed of my lack of productivity, at the thrill with which I melt into nothingness. Ashamed and afraid that once again, I'm doing everything wrong.

What is wrong, exactly? Is there a right way to do life? And if so, how do I find it? Is there a way to know that what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, are the right things? I don't know. I doubt it really. Is it okay to be happy about things that also seem like faults? 

Is my whole life just one big delay, melting into the couch to avoid the cold out there? And when I get there (where??) will there be time to do the things I had planned? Or will it just be a lost day, year, life. 

Pick up

 I am sitting in my car in the pickup line at the Intermediate school. This is where I am at this time every day. Every day, I send my children into the lion's den, into this mask optional, quarantine optional school with 40 active positive covid cases. I grit my teeth every day and I send them in here because I cannot find any better option, but I am not yet ready to add school bus to the equation. So I sit in my car for half an hour every afternoon, securing my spot in line so that they never need to wait for me.

I am 4 hours into my audiobook. I'm starting to fill journals again. I've recently upped my meds and gone back to therapy. Right now, the sun is higher in the sky than it was when I sat here yesterday. And I'm writing. 

Two years ago, I was subbing in that school. I wasn't afraid of what my kids might catch there. I wasn't scanning my email for exposure letters, wasn't picking up the pieces from damage I did myself when trying to do what was best. 

It's been a long two years.  I think, in trying to just get through each day, I've lost the thread of things.

I think it's time to pick it back up. 

On not quitting

I didn't quit something today.

A few weeks ago, I decided to get serious about selling teaching resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. I was excited. This was going to be *my thing*. I had an idea. I had a plan. I was going to be good at this. 

And then reality hit.

I haven't taught full time in 12 years. I'm not good at design. I'm not good at marketing. No one is really interested in anything I could possibly sell. I don't have anything special to offer.

This is the story of my life.

I know that depression lies. I know. I increased my Prozac dose the other day. I've been using my SAD lamp, drinking my water, getting some exercise. I started therapy again, and maybe this time I'll actually tell her things instead of showing up and trying to be a good, obedient student, and then being resentful that my therapist couldn't read my mind and fix me. 

I know all the right things to do.

But this, I'm not sure my brain chemicals can fix.

I start things, I get discouraged, I get disappointed by life, I feel defeated. I get overwhelmed by all the things I don't know how to do, by all the things I would need to learn, by the enormity of what I'm not yet good enough at. And I quit.

I've done it my whole life. 

Today, I woke up and said "This is stupid, I'm stupid, everything is stupid, I don't know why I thought I could do this. I don't know why I even try. I don't wanna try. I give up."

And I wallowed on my couch for a while.

And then I logged into my Teachers pay teachers account and I made one little change to my product descriptions.

It doesn't mean I'm successful. It doesn't mean I'm going to be successful. It doesn't even really mean that I'm not GOING to quit. But today, I didn't quit. So. There's that. 

Today

 I am sitting in a coffee shop writing. It's been a really long time since I've done that, probably too long. There is something about a change of scenery, about being out of my house, about not having anything to do but write, that really makes a difference. 

This morning I woke up with a headache, a headache probably caused by a combination of stress, the glass and a half of wine I had last night, and a general predisposition to headaches. I woke up, I made the coffee, I packed the lunches. I woke the children -- they're 8 and 11 now, did you know that? -- woke them, cajoled them into eating breakfast, into getting dressed. Got in the car, drove them to school. Came home, and looked at my husband watching a telecon on the couch and said, I need to go lie down.

And I slept for 3 hours. 

And now here I am, sitting in a coffee shop at 1:30 in the afternoon, writing. In an hour and a half I need to be back at the school, in the pickup line, waiting to re collect my children. But right now, it is just me, this latte, and my words.

I worry that I don't do enough. I worry that my worth is tied to things that are beyond my capacity. I worry about not working, about not creating things that matter, about not leaving any kind of mark on the world. 

But today, I napped for three hours and I'm having a latte and writing in a coffee shop. Today I'm taking care of the human who is, after all, a prerequisite to any act of creation or productivity. Today I am, in little ways, finding my way back to me. 

Showing up

The hardest thing for me is showing up. Not for my kids. I'll show up for my kids every day of the week. When I have a rare moment in which I am unable to be present for my kids when they want my attention, I sink into a shame spiral. But showing up for me, that part is hard. 

The past two years, the pandemic, have given me more excuses than I needed to sink into my couch and not try too hard at anything, not do anything but survive. It wasn't a time for growth or accomplishment and honestly I took that further than I probably needed to. My depression is the variety that includes a complete lack of motivation, and it and I and the world were in so much agreement, that I just let it run the show. 

But now I want to stop. 

I want to stop stopping? I don't know. I want to show up for myself. To do things that I think are important. To make things. To be someone other than just the person who gets dinner on the table and makes sure homework is done. To actually be a human being with wants and needs and accomplishments. I want to feel happy and proud at the end of every day instead of just feeling done. 

I don't even know where to begin. Except I guess that's not true. I've always known where to begin. Pen to paper is where to begin, and it's scary as hell. Glennon Doyle says that the only way to be a writer is to write, that she's tried all the other possible ways. Damn it. 

So here I am. Showing up. Babbling away. Being real, even if real is as boring as I fear that it is. Putting myself back out into the world, in a way, and trying to remember who I am at the same time. 

It's a beginning. 

Let's write (again), shall we?

 Hello friends. I don't know if anyone is here, so I don't know if anyone is hearing this, so maybe I'm just talking to myself, and maybe that's okay. 

Maybe it doesn't matter who I'm writing for as long as I'm here and I'm writing. 

It's been a really hard year. 

I think you all know that because I think it's been a really hard year for everyone, but me being who I am, the things that are hard for everyone take on a different level in my brain. I know some of you (if there are any of you out there) know what that is. When every minor catastrophe or challenge feels like the thing that is going to end you. Where you genuinely do not believe that you have the capacity to keep up with the things that are coming in, even when you see that everyone else is dealing with those things. 

When the depression wins. At least for a while. 

But here I am. 

I haven't written, really written, gotten into the grit of it, for much too long. And some of that had to do with just being overwhelmed by life, by having a husband and children who were for the first time in a long time just ALWAYS HERE.  And some of it had to do with my brain and it's inability to keep moving forward when things felt heavy and swampy. 

But a lot of it had to do with this problem that I've really had for a long time. With not knowing what to write about, with worrying about not being good enough, with waiting for the exact right thing to fall in my lap and not believing really that it ever would. With not thinking that I or my words would ever be enough in the world, that I didn't deserve to put myself out in the world, that nothing I do or say could possibly matter. 

I still believe all of that to some degree. But I'm here, and I'm writing, and I'm putting it out into the world, and for today that's enough. 

Hello friends. I missed you. I missed me. Let's write, shall we?

I made you something

 So this year. 2020. The dumpster fire that it is. It gave me some pretty incredible gifts. For example, this morning I poured coffee on a cocoa bomb that was left on my doorstep two nights ago by one of my dearest friends. A friendship that came to be because of the mess.

I should back up a little.

Since the beginning of the year, my kids' school district has offered the option of hybrid (and later full time in person) school or full time online synchronous school. From day one, my kids have been all online. It felt like the right thing to do, for a lot of reasons.

It also very quickly felt very lonely.

So I decided to do something brave. I made a Facebook support group for the families in my district whose kids were 100% online. Dozens of people joined. I suddenly felt at home, like I'd found my people.

And then something even more spectacular happened.

One of the wonderful moms in the group, M, sent me and a few other moms a group chat. Would we come to an outdoor, socially distant, happy hour in her backyard?

I think the 3 of them were already close. I was the outsider. I'd known A for years, moved in the same circles as L, and had met M once at a girl scout leaders meeting, but this was not a group I felt part of immediately. And yet. And yet I did.

So I went. Numbers were lower then, and none of us really went anywhere, and it was really safe enough. And it was lovely. Exactly what my soul needed.

But the most wonderful thing was that afterwards, the group chat continued. And I was included. I BELONGED. Because these were our people. Anxious moms with anxiety kids. Smart, socially conscious, kind women.  The truest of the true hearts. Kindred spirits.

And I wouldn't have found them if it hadn't been for the flaming pile of shit that is 2020.

In the past week, those 3 friends all dropped off generous, thoughtful, creative gifts on my doorstep.  A Joe Biden ornament. A wine glass decorated with the name of our group chat. A bag of candy and hot cocoa bombs. Gifts that weren't necessary at all because of course the real gift, the gift that Covid gave me, was finding a place I belong. It took my breath away. 

But also, I was filled with shame and doubt.  I didn't have anything to give to them. Certainly not anything as creative and thoughtful and they'd given me. So this, I thought, is where they realize I'm a fraud and exile me from the tribe. Where they realize I don't have any talent or worth and they don't need me after all. I don't have anything to give.

Nothing but my truth.

"Y'all want an essay?" I joked.