You can take the girl out of social work, but you can’t take the social work out of the girl.
Omicron is doing what it’s doing, and school starts on the 3rd. I can’t imagine any scenario in which the school is not overrun with infections among staff and students, and I don’t want Wee One (WO) to fall victim to it. Just yesterday, I exited my five day quarantine in my room to be around people in a mask. (I’m fine, BTW. It was like a sinus infection. And the biggest thing for me and WO today was to snuggle.) But we did not sacrifice five days of snuggling just for her to get it next week. We have a wedding coming up and I don’t want her to get long COVID.
Last week, on Wee One’s (WO) first day of school, I was out with another mom friend whose son was at his first day of kindergarten. (Let’s call her Tilda.)
The past couple of days have been hard. I’m getting over a cold Wee One (WO) picked up (not COVID) and had a headache for several days. At the same time, I am so so thankful; I have options. We live with my MIL (both a blessing and a challenge), Cohiba can work from home, I can be home with WO. I am shaking with rage for those who do not.
Perhaps you’ll notice I’m writing a little bit more. Wee One (WO) is about to start first grade, and, as of right now, we’re still planning to send her to school, though I think we’ve just decided to keep her online for a semester.
The questions come so fast I can barely collect them.
“Mama?” (She always begins with the question, “Mama?” Even if she’s already talking to me. She just has to get my attention special for the next comment.) “What does fair and square mean?”
An update to a previous post, “On the Edge of Two Eternities.”
Flashback: Bike rides and summer days. My dad’s trumpet. Climbing the trees in my backyard. Moving to a different part of town for high school, feeling like I was telling the story from 90210. Marching band, and cool football night air on my cheeks sunburned from a week of afternoon practices. A threatening interaction before college, a direct result of my dad’s shit. Car accident, coma, hard work and a triumphant return to building a life. Dad was cheating again in a way that threatened to put me out of school. This time, for the first time, I have the power to stop him from hurting me, and I do. He hasn’t talked to me since. I get closer to God and deal with health issues stemming from the accident. I backpack in England and Poland, and get a Master’s degree while working full-time. A trombone player from that high school marching band finds me and we marry, happy to have someone to sit with. We have a little girl, the most magical being we can imagine. We have an adventure in Seattle before moving to Ohio. I get my hip replaced and fall in love with Muay Thai.
“In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.” H.D. Thoreau
Flash forward
I am blessed enough to get pregnant again, so I decide to homeschool our daughter until she can get a COVID vaccine or until the baby is born, whichever comes first. We all get vaccinated and can see my mother again, and I can go back to Ren Fair. I keep raising out kids and creating as I can, particularly a social justice movement in Columbus. Finally, we buy land in the Wenatchee forest to be back close to Seattle. We build a small home, explore the mountains and read together under the trees.
I just finished watching Little Women, the more recent one. Oh, now my heart.
The 1995 one was very dear to me, and watching this one made me remember when I saw the old one-what life was like then and how different it is now.
I’m also watching it with the eyes of a mother, and the eyes of someone who has now seen 25 years pass. It’s bittersweet, and I cried ugly when Beth died.
That’s about how long I have until the Oxycodone kicks in. What a week this has been. What a time. When I heard, as a kid, that you can’t imagine how life will be, this really wasn’t it.
If you don’t click on the link, I’ll summarize the gist of the list: Brains can grow, no matter what. Praise effort, hard work, remind yourself and your kid that mistakes are how we grow and and change is possible. To be positive.
Dick. You should have slowed down more. I thought you were slowing down more. I thought you had seen me and were slowing down to turn and let me go and were just doing that rolling slow thing. Then I realized you fucking weren’t and were even gonna speed up. Fuck.
I Didn't Just Wake Up This Morning With A Craving 