Cancelled

Last night I was in my kitchen, helping out with setting up dinner, when I received an email from our Superintendent, informing us that new regulations had come to light with the school closures, and while Governor Cuomo (who everyone seems to be crushing hard on lately) lifted the 180 day requirement that schools need to meet in order to receive their state funding for education, he updated that stipulation to say that's true ONLY IF YOU ARE MAINTAINING CONTINUITY OF LEARNING, ACTIVITIES, FOOD, AND CHILDCARE FOR EVERY WEEKDAY THROUGH APRIL 15th, which is the current date schools are closed until.

Spring break was supposed to be next week, and now it is cancelled.

Next week will be like any other week (which is definitely NOT like any other week before 3/16), with us still trying to figure out how to deliver instruction remotely when our district wasn't set up for that before this, and when we haven't been reliably receiving work from around 50% of the student population. Of my 9 students I service in my special education program that is half self-contained and half integrated co-taught, I have received work that I can provide feedback on from TWO students so far. In my Social Studies class of 9, I have received work and feedback from 3 students. But every day I am trying to connect with students and families and provide learning opportunities and feedback when I can, and connecting with colleagues to try to figure out just how we execute this unprecedented plan to teach remotely for the first time under crisis.

So the idea of a break was super appealing, to have space to NOT be logged in all the time, to NOT feel uncertainty and guilt about what I am or am not doing and who I am and am not reaching despite my best efforts. To, even though I am not leaving the house except for walks in my somewhat rural neighborhood and the occasional take out pickup where they place it in the trunk and we wipe everything down with Clorox wipes before we even bring it upstairs, PRETEND THAT I AM ON A STAYCATION and this isn't a terrible global pandemic we're living through.

I understand the need for continuous delivery of food. I understand the need for childcare. I can't help but think that the students (and their families) could use a break from instruction, too...a little normalcy in the face of everything changing so rapidly and the world being so scary.

I guess it's that loss of normalcy in the Break Is Cancelled email that prompted me to burst into tears and then have a good ugly cry for about a half hour.

You're going to be shocked by this, but I am having a hard time with balance and this new reality. I worked a lot when school was in session (I stayed late, did stuff at home, worked many weekend hours, needed my TA to remind me to go pee), but now it looks so differently and there's this weird blur in the day. I'm logged in to my school account and get emails on my phone and my iPad and my laptop all day (and I feel like I need to have one of those on me at all times), and I have a hard time saying "okay, it's after 3, I will wait to respond until tomorrow."

Part of that is because I know there are a lot of people who are balancing doing this teaching thing AND parenting/teaching their own small children, and while I am grateful that I do not have to do that, I also have tremendous, super-un-productive guilt over NOT having that piece in my day, and that it somehow means that I need to do MORE because I don't have that added responsibility. And I take on the responsibility of trying to make sure everyone is doing what they should and has what they need and it's just too much. Logically I know that this is pretty much all outside of my control, and there is nothing I can do but practice that whole acceptance thing.

It turns out I suck at that.

I have guilt that maybe I'm not doing enough. I have guilt that maybe I'm doing too much and stressing out my students and families. I have guilt that I have more freedoms than others (which is real dumb because I doubt that they have guilt for having what I wanted so badly but couldn't have). I have guilt that I have food and housing security. I have guilt that I have a steady paycheck coming (which helps to feed the guilt about not doing enough, even though I know that's not true, logically). I have guilt that we can afford to do Instacart and not step foot in a grocery store. I have guilt that I can reduce my risk substantially because I can pay for services that put others at risk. I have guilt that I have all these beautiful books to read but I feel too guilty to sit and read them. I have guilt that I feel so sad about the cancellation of break when there are healthcare workers who are working way more than normal and putting their lives at risk, and kids who desperately need the structure and routine of school but who can't access that right now. I have guilt that I am so sad about not having a break that doesn't even work like a "real" break anyway.

It's so heavy. And I know it is an unnecessary load, one that I've piled on my back for no good reason, but that's just how my brain works. And the break thing really screwed with my head. Because as it is, we are working off of 2 week increments -- we are closed until April 15th, and yet we know that if the apex of this in NY is likely 2-3 weeks out, WE WILL BE CLOSED FAR LONGER THAN THAT. But it's coming out in these little onesie twosie two week increments, which makes it harder to plan and feel like there is any certainty.

Because of course, there IS NO CERTAINTY.

Certainty is an illusion.

Which you'd think I would have learned through all the years of infertility treatments and IVF and adoption that did not result in the child we wanted. And so much of it came in 2 week increments. And so much of it was made up of plans that were cancelled. Of feeling wildly out of control but still wanting to grasp at some way to corral it into something manageable, through obsessive data charting and thought spirals and projecting when things might work out and what next year might look like IF things were successful.

It feels so terribly familiar.

And the cancelled break felt like all the other cancellations that went with my life before, and took this opportunity for self care and threw it away.

I suppose the upside to this is that I will just have to figure out my own regimen for self care and how to manage all this better than I am now (which falls under NOT AT ALL). I will have to plot out my day and make parameters for myself so I don't lose my fucking mind. Unless it's too late, ha HA ha ha. I will have to practice the whole letting go and acceptance that I did with something way more momentous, but figure out how to do it with something that has no foreseeable end and could possibly kill people I love.

This sucks.

Someone sent me this today, and I really need to remind myself those last two lines aren't just for students... they are for me, too.

So just do your very best.
And do not worry about the rest. 

Solid advice I need to take.