Another Saturday night.

This time last year Saturday nights were always very sad. I was marking the weeks since Jason's death, and that's all I could think about. A year has passed, and I have found myself not marking the weeks any longer. That's a relief. Time really does heal. Don't get me wrong; not a day goes by that I don't miss him, but it no longer feels like a sucker punch to the heart when I do. I remember last year thinking that the pain would never lessen. I really didn't want it to lessen at that time. The pain and grief kept me connected to Jason. In many circumstances I've heard that a person shouldn't make any real changes during the first year of grief. This advice is especially given to widows or widowers, but I can see why that would be true. I have been in no shape to make major life decisions this year.
When I finished my Master's, I wanted so much to change jobs, but I didn't even put out a resume. Now I realize why. It is a comfort to know what I'm doing at work right now. I know that because we just finished the first semester, it's time to begin to think about the research paper. I'm familiar with the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Huckleberry Finn, so I don't have to spend time planning because I know what's next. I like to change things up each year, but I don't have to start from scratch. Maybe next year I will be ready for something new. I realize now that last year I was back at school at this time, I really don't remember very much about teaching from Oct. to Dec. Those poor kids. I joked with them that their teacher had Alzheimer's because I would forget so many things, but I really did have a brain injury. My mind just couldn't wrap itself around one of my kids being gone.
I think some of my friends at school covered for me last year. I'm sure that students complained about my addled brain, but it never got to me. That's another reason I was afraid to put out resumes. I am truly blessed to work with my friends. We get along so well and enjoy one another's company. We saw a popular video a few years ago as part of in-service about a fish business in Seattle that has so much fun at work that people take their lunch hour to watch their work. Someone should come in to our school and do a documentary about how important it is to enjoy being around the people we work with. I talk to people all the time who can't stand the people they work with. How sad for them. I don't know the magic that makes us like this, but it has been this way for twenty years. Teachers have moved, retired, left, and teachers have been hired and added to our group, and the atmosphere around me stays the same. We care about one another and all the families represented. We have a standing joke that we usually start our stories now with, "I know I've told this story before, but..." So we have a plan to just number our stories and then laugh when someone calls out that number. The thing is I usually like hearing their stories again. My favorite is Gina's story of having a discussion with her son Andrew about some discipline issue. She and Dave had given Andrew some scenarios so that he wouldn't make the same mistake again. When they asked him what he had learned, he said, "I know what a scenario is." That's number 68.