Tuesday 27 August 2019

The day before

My maternity/parental leave ends tomorrow.

August 28th, 2019 sounded like a very long time into the future when I was filling out my leave forms in January 2018, which I still clearly remember doing. The last weeks of work (as it turned out, the last at my former school) passed in a haze of appointments and squeezing in just-one-more-task. 

But this is the crazy thing about the future: if you are lucky, it does actually arrive one day. Tomorrow’s the day.

I am probably the calmest now that I will be about it, as my expectations are still unformed. I wasn’t able to go into school early because somebody broke into the building and made a mess, and teachers were specifically told to stay away till official entry day. That probably was not a bad thing (for me: obviously not at all a good thing generally).

I’ve tried to prepare my personal life and my kids’ lives so that for the next few days I can focus on the preparation and teaching part. Won’t go into all the details (there are a lot of details, and not gonna lie, I really kind of enjoy fussing over them). But underneath it all is a feeling of stillness and rest I hope I can maintain. And it comes from the knowledge that everything is passing.

The past two days I took Dani to visit her daycare, which is AJ’s old daycare. And I remembered (sometimes) crying a little after I dropped off AJ, especially the first year. Then I remembered crying - a lot - a few months ago when we withdrew AJ and had to say goodbye to all the staff. Will it be a similar story with Dani? Either way....none of this is permanent. All the busyness, all the nerves, all the details and preparations. It reminds me to live in the moment, which does make me less anxious. The anxiety will be back, taking up residence in my stomach in a few hours: I know this. (Do you have any good smoothie recipes to recommend? You will be doing me and the people who depend on me a world of good.) But these moments, of anticipation, of breath-stopping reality, of potential weaving with time into kinetic energy: they will never come again. And so whatever else they are, they are endlessly precious.

Onward.

6 comments:

  1. Good luck tomorrow! Your new kids will be lucky to have you for a teacher.
    Also, I had a really hard time with anxiety until I figured out that for me, it's hormonal. I don't know if it is just tied to this specific life event for you or if it's something you struggle with regularly. I ended up going on birth control because it is the only way my hormones don't fluctuate crazily and cause anxiety.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! totally appreciate the vote of confidence.
      Yes the anxiety is something that's been around all my life. Hormones could be related...they certainly affect my moods. It's mostly situational in my case...anything new will bring it on. Who knows what my hormones are doing right now though. I'm even more irregular than usual. Could be pre menopausal for all I know. Technically been periomenopausal since I was first tested for fertility. Thanks for the insights.

      Delete
  2. Wishing you all the luck in your newest journey. I love how positively you have framed all of it...that all of the anxiety and uncertainty and upheaval is temporary. And this “is comes from the knowledge that everything is passing”. Such wisdom in your words.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! the first few teacher days went well...next the kids are in ha! Have a staggered start though so hopefully it's not too overwhelming for them or me hahahaha! I meet the grade 7s tomorrow: we can all cope together.

      Delete
  3. I hope everything went well. You are so lucky that you were able to take so much time off to be with your girls. You will settle into a routine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm late replying but thank you! it's been a hectic few weeks...may update soon

      Delete