So evidently I’m grieving…

Last year my father died. I am still grieving that loss, and recently, I hear talk about how we are all grieving the loss of normalcy. Until now, I have found that idea curious, especially given my recent experience.

Then last week, I got angry. I was angry about the disparity in remote learning that my children are experiencing and I have to explain daily with a smile on my face. I was angry about the loss all children are experiencing by not being in school alongside teachers and friends. I was angry about being put into a position to choose between what my children are “supposed” to be doing and what I think they need to be doing. (Fellow rule followers, am I right?). And we aren’t even going to get started on how I feel about trying to balance all this with working…because…there isn’t enough wine or coffee in the world to tackle this one. (I subsist on uppers and downers.)

But it hit me. I am grieving. There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

We all know I have done denial like a champ. Remember a couple weeks ago when I had a bananas schedule set up for my children, tried to pretend that my home office was a real school and thought I might actual learn Italian while also making time for baking my own bread?! Let’s just say that I managed to catch up on laundry and for now, we’re calling that a win.

Clearly anger was the theme of last week. I mean, I think I might have yelled at Netflix for making a miniseries to mini. I have so many questions about what happens to Esty! (If you haven’t watched Unorthodox on Netflix and need something to really sink into your denial phase, I highly recommend.).

This week I am all jacked up on coffee and trying to get to a place where I feel like I am doing justice to all the things…my kids, my job, myself, maybe the laundry…we’ll see. How often do you really need to wash stretchy pants?

If you’re interested in what we are doing over here as part of our Crisis Schooling curriculum, let me know. I’m happy to share some of what has been working and at least make a joke out of the things that aren’t.