Hi all
I am mostly doing just fine. At the beginning of all this, I distracted myself with books and cleaning and ignored the situation altogether as we are not a social family and it was spring break - perfectly normal. And then Monday of last week came up and, unable to ignore it any longer, I broke down completely and sobbed most of the day because being a teacher right now is really hard. Apparently, I wasn't the only one, and the district called a "pause" and rethought what they would do with this extended closure (that even though they haven't declared it yet, looks to be the rest of the school year). They came to what I feel is a reasonable conclusion that, while it still leaves me feeling like I can't do the job I was destined to do, will allow students (and me) to focus on their needs first and school second. Instead of continuing with school business as usual, I am now working closely every day with students who had not yet demonstrated learning and one day a week providing learning opportunities for the rest of my students. This is much better for me, because I am also a parent and have my younger kids to teach through all of this as well.
I had wanted to use writing as a good distraction as well, but I am finding it hard to do so. Apparently, I have too many ideas floating around in my head and can't get my brain to focus on just one long enough to make any decisions or write anything substantial. I have one story I wrote quite a lot on (for NaNo, so a lot a lot) that I think I'm going to scrap (hide it from myself, I can't bring myself to just delete it) and start over from scratch. (That being said, if anyone is interested in being a sounding board for some of these ideas, let me know. I also have an original fiction in the works I could use a sounding board for as well.)
I hope that as time passes, I will stop randomly breaking down into uncontrollable tears, but am grateful that only happens every few days and I can easily convince myself it is already summer break in between. If only the weather would warm up.
