I grew up hating the day after my birthday more than nearly any other day of the year. Why, you ask? Because not only was my birthday over, but so was the summer, and school was now imminent. Sometimes it was as soon as three days after, which was extra demoralizing. This year feels extra weird for a ton of reasons, not the least of which is that we had the most exciting part of our summer vacation almost immediately before heading back to school. It's a huge downshift.
I guess I should consider myself lucky because I would also be going back to the office right now if we didn't get delayed further. Technically we were going back September 1, but I'd have been on vacation for the first few days and likely would have tried to wrangle one more day at home the Tuesday after Labor Day, before the kids went back Wednesday. I can only imagine how much more stressed I'd have felt if I was also trying to get back to "full normal" rather than just readjusting to earlier wake-ups, packing two lunches, and getting kids off to school. I was grateful for every extra day we had to readjust to regular life post-vacation, because there were a lot of loose ends to tie up once we got home. And even with all of that time, even Tuesday was disorienting despite only needing to get Jacob off to orientation, Craig back to the office, and me back working from home. Of course, I was working from my new workspace and had one therapy appointment and two pickups to make the entire day feel disjointed, so maybe I was doomed no matter what.
Speaking of the new workspace, as alluded to in a previous post, the change was necessitated by acquiring this piece of furniture...
My dad's cousin and his wife live here in Greece and they're planning on moving out west closer to all three of their kids (and many grandkids) relatively soon. So they're trying to lighten their load a bit, but this is a family heirloom so it was a little harder to part with. It belonged to my great-grandma. My aunt had mentioned on the 4th of July that the cousins were ready to let it go, but would love to keep it in the family. As the physically closest relative, I was obviously the easiest possibility. At first I wasn't sure, particularly when I realized it wouldn't work for my work desk. My workspace wasn't great for a lot of reasons, and I had previously pondered getting a new one to replace the one I've had since I was 11, but this one didn't fit the bill either since it didn't have a spot for a monitor. However, when I thought about the storage and the meaning--and how simply lovely it is--I decided that any minor, temporary work from home inconvenience would be worth it for the long-term benefit of the piece. So, in the days before vacation I cleaned up (and repaired) Carter's former remote school desk (our old computer cart on the other side of the dining room), moved a bunch of random stuff out of a corner of the basement office into the crawl space, dismantled my workspace, moved my old desk to the basement office, and picked up the new desk and hutch from their house to put where my old desk was. It was a little bit harrowing getting it in the van, home, and inside, but we survived. I spent all Friday night trying to clean it up--first just vacuuming, then using Murphy's Oil Soap, and then getting to the hardcore stuff, Liquid Gold. The Liquid Gold was leftover from when my mom helped me clean up my ugly, awful kitchen cabinets at our old house, and when I read on the can that it hides scratches, I had to try it. Considering the age of the piece, it was in great shape, but it had definitely gotten its share of bumps and scratches over the years, and on the dark wood they were quite visible. When I put on a coat of Liquid Gold, I couldn't believe me eyes--the scratches almost completely disappeared. It was incredible! By the time I was done, the piece looked amazing and almost like new--or at least gently loved, which any antique should.
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| The inside has so much storage! There were a bunch of scratches on the left side of the fold-down, but they disappeared so amazingly well. |
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| Love this little door--and there used to be a bunch of visible scratches around the knob, also now hard to see. |
It matches nothing but it really doesn't matter--it's a statement piece for sure. Apparently there's a matching table and chairs, but I don't trust a real wood table around my kids! I've loved the many comments I got on social media about how so many people remember their grandma having an almost identical piece--and a couple even inherited it themselves, too. It's just so pretty and fits in its spot so well. I still have two full drawers to fill and I'm still deciding what to move into the cabinet. It probably won't be nearly as classy as what my great-grandma had in there--which was visible in this picture from the early 70s, where you can see it in her house.
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| She was the coolest woman, sharp as a tack into her 80s. Darn hip fracture did her in, but I have lovely memories of her cookie jar of Oreos or maybe even her sugar cookies, and spending time at her house, usually for her birthday party or after lunch out with my grandparents, since her house was on the way home from their favorite place. My only other keepsake from her is a baby doll I used to play with that lived in her front bedroom. |
I feel honored to have this piece and can't take my eyes off it, but it's going to bug me until I figure out what's going in that upper cabinet! I spent part of Saturday before vacation moving some things into the desk storage and drawers, and some into my old desk, which could become my workspace again if Carter has to go remote. Right now it's holding a lot of overdue filing, but it actually fits in its new spot perfectly and helped me move around a few things that needed better spots after we ditched our old basement desk. It's always nice to have some forced organization that actually improves things.
Still, it was weird sitting at my new workspace Tuesday instead of the spot I've sat in for the last 18 months, but it seems like it will work. It's actually probably a bit more comfortable since I was contorted weird at my desk because of the drawers and the tray table that had to hold my laptop, but it will still take some adjusting after all this time. But it feels like a whole new phase of at-home work in a new spot (hopefully for just another month or so, but we'll see), which just happens to coincide with a fresh start for the kids.
The transition back to school felt so much more momentous this year. I mean, last year was intimidating because we didn't know how COVID would do in school settings and we'd had a solid six months of the kids at home, but I think I was just so grateful to have them out of the house and getting real learning that I'd have moved mountains for it to happen. This year, cases are up and yet everyone is going back full time--which is desperately needed but merely leaving everyone hopeful that masks will do their job. But on a practical level, I've apparently been sucked into some sort of Stockholm Syndrome-esque vortex where the comfort of our usual boring but exhausting chaos seems less intimidating than trying to get back in a routine. In the spring when school ended I was terrified to have the kids running amok for months, but now I'm nervous that's the easier option than early mornings, endless lunch packing, and schedules. But that seems to be what this pandemic does--it sucks you into a routine, generally one that's mind-numbingly boring but less intense than your usual, and makes you start to appreciate it. But when it's time to change, it's paralyzingly nervewracking compared to how change would have been handled pre-pandemic. I think that's sort of why making food for parties has been extra overwhelming to me, or why I struggled with evening bike rides or almost any other activity. I got too comfortable in the monotony and don't know how to break out of it, even if what's on the other side is totally worth it.
It's almost like the day-to-day survival mode has been so intense lately that mentally I can't allow myself to envision a day where things change or (gasp) go back to normal. Maybe it's a loss of hope. Maybe it's sleep deprivation. Or maybe it's that for a while I fully expected to be back in the office right now so I never thought I'd be back in this solo work from home situation. Even though summer always goes quickly, having the kids home this summer feels like all I can remember. That could be partly because Carter was home three days a week for most of the year and my window of two kids gone the majority of the time was very small, so everything blended together and I'm feeling the weight of the full 18 months. Regardless, it's just so strange to me how weird this feels. Something as simple and routine as the kids going back to school feels foreign and hard to fathom. I'm trying to work through why that is, but that mental block making this year extra challenging. And the post-vacation hangover isn't making it any easier.
It's even odder with Craig gone now, despite the two COVID cases at his office in the last couple weeks. The quiet is nice but a little isolating, but at least I can strategically use podcasts (or maybe even the TV, now that I can see it) to provide noise when I need it. After only a few days, though, I can say that I don't know how people who had to quarantine alone for months did it. I really just like having a minute or two to talk to a real person. Someone ran a poll on our little work Slack chat about whether we're looking forward to going back to the office (assuming October holds), and I was the only one who said yes. Two were undecided. I think the other active parent logged a "skeptical that it will occur" vote, but it just amazes me that people aren't more eager to get back to real people. Not dressing up and not having constant co-worker interruptions has its perks, for sure, but part of me wants to get back to what normal life is supposed to be. Sometimes I think my anticipation and fear of the transition is worse than the real thing will be. The thing is, I don't consider myself an extrovert, but without much of a social life, not having a work life means that seeing people outside of my house that I can actually talk to is rare. And the fun, cute conversations we all once had on Slack have almost entirely stopped, which makes the disconnect even worse. I think it just speaks to my whole Stockholm Syndrome theory--it's like this pandemic has imprisoned us and now so many have recalibrated and prefer solitude just because they like the other perks it offers. As it is those people will only have three days in the office once we go back, so I don't think they have much right to complain. I just feel like I'm hitting some sort of breaking point, and I'm not entirely sure why it's just happening now when I finally have peace and quiet and could still do it in my pajamas if I really wanted. Why is it so hard 18 months in?
On the bright side, a lot of my concerns were mostly unfounded--for now. The boys had decent first days of school and we were on time without massive coercing.
Not only is his best buddy in his class (yay for both moms unknowingly requesting the other kid), but he has a few pther friends and loves his teacher so far. And it's just a little too cute that Ms. Howe loves cows. We already want to write a children's book about it. That's a much better response than we got last year, so whether she's really just that much better or his medicine is already doing its job, I don't know. The work hasn't really started yet, but I'm hopeful. He seems happy with all the third graders being at recess at the same time and he already earned "Cougar Cash", so those things have helped. He's not real thrilled with the afterschool program right now. I think attendance is way down and their activities are still a little limited, but we had signed him up expecting I'd be in the office and it's probably not worth trying to pull him for one month if he's just going to end up back there halfway through next month. They hiked the price so I'm half tempted to start looking at daycares again. It would be nice if we could do the latch key thing since he'd probably just hop on a device instantly and Jacob would be home within an hour (I did it in third grade some days), but I don't think we're there just yet.
But, all things considered, despite my reservations things have gone relatively well. Of course, it's only been two days (only two?!) and exhaustion has a way of overtaking even the best habits once the adrenaline wears off. So, we'll see. Test #1 will be tomorrow when Jacob wakes up post-COVID shot #2 and insists he can't go to school, but we'll see what we can do. At least it's Friday, which means another regroup is only a day away. Yay.
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