Ball Drop

Well my lands, friends. It’s been a hot minute. Literally hot. I’ve missed y’all. I have.

Things have changed.

It’s not you. It’s me.

I got a job. (Yes, you read that right.)

A jobby job!

An employed woman after 10 years of riding the sofa pine, staying home with my babies that aren’t even babies any more…but still my babies. It’s WILD, y’all.

And I can barely tread water the size of a kiddie pool. This coming out of retirement is hard stuff. Not bad, just hard.

I’ve reentered the teaching trenches and these trenches are showing NO.MERCY. I ain’t as young as I once was — years ago when I had alllll the energy, less weight both figuratively and literally all heavy like, had sleeping down pat (you know, no night sweats, sick children, unexplained insomnia that comes with revolutions around the sun), and not as many other living things that I bore responsibility for — I was still tired. But in my untethered (except for my husband) youth, I could come home, nap it off, and be ready to go that evening. So, it’s not like I didn’t know I was going to be tired. I did. It’s just I wasn’t mentally prepared. I should have started binging on some ginkgo biloba or one of those essential oils for mental clarity or something as soon as I felt the itchy pants to get off the couch. ‘Cause my brain is fried. Deep fried crispy.

This gray matter of mine has error code 24/7 flashing, needs a soft (and firm) ware update, has forgotten its passcode, is running out of gigabytes; otherwise on the brink of a server crash.

Result: a woman with dark circles that would make an albino raccoon jealous, wrinkled skin that rivals a pug, and zombie-like eyes and grunts that are just in time for Halloween (at least that’s one thing to knock off my War and Peace thick list of things to do).

As my husband has so tenderly reminded me, I know I ain’t the only working mom in America. I do know, so don’t hear this as whining (unless you feel sorry for me), rather that this is an experience I haven’t had before and I’m learning (that it’s hard! Good, but hard!) and those of you that know me know that I have to talk, talk, talk about anything going on in my life — I mean, I’m not self-centered or anything. And since my voice sounds like I’m a late night lounge singer that smokes a pack or two a day right now because I talk, talk, talk to five year olds all day long at school and then four three other kids at home, I’m typing. Cross-eyed and drooling, but typing.

I’ve heard of busy-ness likened to a juggling act and I think that’s a pretty fair analogy. And listen up clowns at Barnum and Bailey: you ain’t got to worry your pretty little wigged heads that this girl here is coming for your gig. ‘Cause I’m not good at juggling lots of balls. A couple is about all I could handle, and that was a difficult set (STOP– you know who you are), and I’ve thrown in about 14 more and I’m telling you, I’ve been dropping balls everywhere.

Not just balls. I’ve been dropping kids off at all of their after school shenanigans, dropping construction paper at the laminator, dropping dolla dolla bills, y’all at the Dollar Tree, dropping chores like a hot potato, dropping calls and texts from my people (and not because I don’t love them), and dropping cell phones when trying to answer for once. Dropping said cell phone in a toilet that hadn’t been flushed by my son.

Dude.

Did a little google research and am pretty sure I gleaned from the top 1 out of 1,654,387,243,683 articles found in 0.2 seconds that urine is sterile– so I’m taking that nugget like this: my phone has been sterilized. (And don’t worry you scientist friends– I teach Kindergarten and not this concept so you don’t have to worry about me damaging any scaffolds in knowledge acquisition. I’m just trying to teach Kindergarteners to flush and wash hands and obvi I need some strategies in conveying that lesson because the kindergartener that lives under my roof hasn’t learned that one yet.)

So all this to say–I’ve dropped this Blog ball here recently, but I’m not dropping it forever. Promise. This teaching stuff has too much wonderful fodder for me to allow my typy-typing fingers to idle. But I’m thinking I may not have as much time as I did before to give to this little side project dream of mine like I once did. So though I may drop it for a little bit, I’ll pick it back up.

And surely drop some other ball in its stead. Like paying bills, doing taxes, flossing my teeth, cooking dinner (HA! I just chortled! I’ve never handled that one in muh life!)…

or teaching Kindergarteners to flush.

Stay tuned…I’m literally front row to the Greatest Show on Earth (teaching babes, that is–the road to sanctification, I tell ya) and I know I’ll have plenty of shenanigans to share. And if I can’t share, I’ll update you on my juggling skills…

or do a youtube tutorial on clown makeup application to cover these bags under my eyes.