I’ve really been struggling lately. I usually fall hard into summer. Embrace the break for the blessing it is. Live our adventures with our family and friends and welcome the change of pace. I emerge on the other side renewed and inspired and ready for the new year. September has always been my New Year.
And I know it’s a hard time to be a lot of things right about now. But it’s really a hard time to be an educator. As a teacher, I know so much has been written about what we are living through. It makes me ache, feel vulnerable. So many emotions and truth be told, not a lot of them fill my cup. I am just so tired.
As we inch closer to the start of school, I am feeling a slight shift. In “normal” years, I would be fighting it, hanging on to making summer memories, knowing that this summer won’t ever happen again. That this summer is one year closer to Joey going off into the world, our family of four forever changed. But this summer? Well, nothing is “normal” about this summer. So I guess it’s normal to feel the way I do.
Jason and I sat down last night and planned out what we think our school days will look like… what time we should get up and go to bed, what time to go for a walk or a run, scheduling playtime for the dogs and walks as a family, time for fresh air and sunshine, time away from a screen and sitting. Dreaming of new routines and rituals, the change of seasons. Crisp air, falling leaves, fires. Maybe even some football. A shift in more ways than one. Afterwards, I felt some of my unease ebb, a little less uncertainty I suppose.
Don’t get me wrong. I grieve hard for what we don’t have but I am also so excited for all the ways we will grow this school year. It isn’t ideal — none of this is ideal. But here we are. And I am not going to waste this time. I think we can simultaneously struggle and grow, right?
Because I am ready to keep growing in ways I wouldn’t have been able to — as a mom, a wife, an educator. As a woman who, soon enough, will have a life that doesn’t revolve around her children. Joey gone to college and if he has his way, Ian off to college too. The center of my universe will shift and I need to be ready for that.
A lot of growing. And a lot of reminding that this too will end. This too will end. This too will end.
And sometimes I have the gift of gentle reminders to nudge me onward and upward. Like this photo that popped up in my memories today. Of me singing to Ian while he was sedated and on a ventilator after his open heart surgery. Having to stop singing to him because his heart was racing and it needed to rest. Willing him to know that I was right there… that I will always be right there, even if he cannot hear me or see me or feel me.
A gentle reminder that that time of our life did, indeed, end. And that we are better for having walked that path. I would have never chosen it — open heart surgery in all its helplessness. But I am better for having walked through it.
Just like these times. None of us would have chosen this. But here we are. This too will end. And while we would have never chosen the path we’re on, we will all be better for it. Because there are some things you only learn when you live through the hard.
You have a way with words. I’ve been struggling, too, but also trying to set us up for a successful year. A friend of mine always tells her son, “We can do hard things.” These are hard times, but like you said, this too shall end. Thanks for sharing!