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My family is sick lately.
We’re not usually sick – we get regular flu shots and for
the most part, we’re all rather healthy, even in the middle of flu and cold
season. No one has severe allergies or any sort of “-itis” or medical condition. We’re really lucky like that.
But something shifted late last week.
My younger daughter has been a little out-of-sorts, crying,
upset. My middle daughter collapsed from a mild case of heat stroke on a Sunday
hike (she’s fine, thankfully, just needed a lot of R&R and water) and
missed most of her classes on Monday. My
oldest daughter, already in pain from the final rigorous phase of her last
month of wearing braces, felt like she was going to black out this
morning and collapsed into a catatonic heap on my bed before school.
I wondered aloud to my husband, What is going on?
He didn't have to answer. I feel it, too.
We’re depleted,
plain and simple. Depleted of the energy required to go through the motions of
a regular schedule. Sick of waking up early and running and working all day long, only to
have hours of homework after school (when they should be outside,
playing, enjoying the real, natural world). Ready for the unstructured freedom
of summer.
What is it about the sun that makes our minds wander?
At the start of every school year – or, really, a month into
it, around October – we’re ready for the structure and discipline of winter. It
seems as though the cold weather inspires a nose-to-the-grindstone
attitude, followed by the rewards of winter holidays and New Year celebrations. And just
past the new year, we have a plethora of faux-holiday days off that keep our
stamina up. But after Spring Break, it’s all about the last few months of
school, the “final push before summer.”
But still, I hate it.
This morning after I dropped Serena off at school, I watched
Emme sleeping in her bed, mouth open slightly, dreaming, her braces enjoying
their final weeks in her mouth.
It won’t always be
like this, a voice inside my head admonished. Someday in the very near
future, my little ducklings will have to finish up their little lives here with
me and go off in search of their own paths. And at that time, will any of this
rigor matter? What will missed homework and sick days and even school itself
mean?
Again, I know the answer.
Not much.
Watching Emme sleep, I recognized the trap we fall into,
believing that we have to do this, or
we have to do that. And I was a
junkie for good grades and being the best at my job, etc. Just last night (and
again this morning on the way to school), I lectured Serena on not falling
behind in homework because the due date is several days away (and other
homework tends to pile up, on top of it). To tell the truth, I got sick of
hearing my own voice lecturing, mostly because I don’t get the point of so much
homework.
Is it just me? Or are you feeling depleted too??
