And so it goes…
I’m writing this less because I think that anyone might ever read this, but more because I want to remember, and for me, the process of writing slows me down enough to emblazon a memory pretty deeply in the recesses of my mind.
Yesterday, I waxed poetic (and hyperbolic) about my worries going back to work after a week and a half in quarantine. The focuses of my anxiety fell squarely into two buckets: the possible/probable, and the ridiculous. Now, while I would never claim any kind of prescience, I do want to report that many of my “whatifs” were realized today. My desk had not suffered an actual explosion, but there were papers. So many papers. The drama machine was in full operation, with a handful of kids in ISS and several rumors scribbled on paper that I had to throw away. I did, indeed, spill curry on my pants. And the kiddos were a little less respectful than I usually hope for. It was kind of a day.
You know what else it was? It was great. Coming into school is like coming home, right into the center of the work God has called me to. I love these kids. I love J, who loudly regaled me during study skills with every joke he told while I was gone, and M and E, who resumed jockeying for my attention with random comments, and D, who takes attendance for me in homeroom and makes me a list of the absent kids on the board. I love B, who read a sentence out loud even though she is more afraid of reading aloud than dying, and I love A, who wrote the best essay of his life. I love L, who apparently asked my sub to use the bathroom multiple times a day while I was gone, and A, who was in the bathroom for 15 minutes and told the sub she could do that “because she is special”. I love, love, love every attitudinous, tricky, challenging, beautiful, stinky, brave, independent little one of them. In any day I am privileged to spend with them, the good will always outweigh the frustrating. (Unless it is the day before a vacation. Hard pass!)
I am behind on grading. My lesson tomorrow is only 3/4 baked. But the fridge is stocked with caffeine, we practiced three reading strategies today for tacking complex informational texts, and it was a really, really fun and joyful day. Amen.
