A year later.

Well, that was something, and what a neat way to end the countdown, exactly one year ago it was Spring Break and I was planning a ski trip, midway through the boys tennis season, sad that SIFF 2020 was postponed and preparing for the final spring push to get seniors graduated.

A year later I’m planning a ski trip, midway through the girl’s golf season, sad but OK that SIFF 2021 is online and preparing for a hybrid schedule and the final spring push to get seniors graduated.

You can go through the 47 blogs if you want, I numbered them for you so you can see the progression. But putting this year in the rearview mirror is probably a healthier choice. Sure, there’s some riveting reading but the important thing is tomorrow and how you are going to emerge from this very difficult year.

The most read according to the irritating counter at the bottom of the blog (which just appeared one day around year two): Day 112 School-A plea to Gav-o and Sundari Mace and Tony Thurmond for rational decision making around the return to school. My message has always been the same, distance learning is crisis learning and should not be compared to any other year, also the classroom is safe when the danger is gone (teachers vaccinated and a zero-death rate for students). Otherwise, what’s the point?

Course, things are still pretty far from normal but I’m not worried about falling over dead anymore. Remember those days? The first time you walked through Safeway with gloves and masks and fear and loathing. The old lady who Coronacorrected you for not following the big red arrows on the ground. The empty shelves of toilet paper, the many questions about your job, the cancelled gatherings and events, the wonderful/terrible/anxious unknowns.

But then one day it happened, the vaccine arrived, the end was in sight, kids will soon be heading back to school, lunch at The Girl and The Fig will no longer require Tri-climate NorthFace gear, and regular life will return. Yes? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?  Oh, sorry, thought I was back teaching over Zoom.

So how come we don’t feel much better? Where’s the vaccination parties? Where’s the celebration of parents and teachers and medical personnel and those Safeway workers who kept plugging along when things were at their most grim?

Well, I’ll tell you, we’re all still plugging along because things are still pretty grim.

As the sun sets on spring break, I find myself trying to write this snappy end of the year summation for this final blog but my creative brain is wounded. Like, look at the decreasing number of entries and decreasing creativity in the last year. It’s all been just kinda: mmehhhh (things are so bad I have to make up words).

I’m also nowhere near where I wanted to be in my job search for next year. In a meeting the other day at the district office I said out loud, “I want to change the world” and so I have been spending much of this week reworking my very tired resume, attaining some outstanding and some really mediocre letters of recommendation, updating my Linked In information, and searching for that next fit which will get me closer to the above goal.

But I have pandemic brain fog so things are twice as difficult and I’m twice as winey and really, is it that big a deal if I wait another year to get my new resume out? Well, yes but also hells to the no. Wait, what.

Your brain hates prolonged boredom because synaptic plasticity comes from stimulation. You gravitate toward the adventurer rather than the bookworm at parties because they have more to say (please don’t cancel me because I prefer adventure over reading). New input/experience/knowledge makes us happy.  Unfortunately, we are mostly all bookworms or screenworms these days but we know how to change that.

Of course, you know the solution even without reading my post-covid workbook. Open new doors and walk through them. Surprise old friends with a DM or text or actual letter (yes, they still exist). Get a new job, a new cause, a new hairstyle because all of these things stimulate your brain (go with the Billie Eilish Grammys look for maximum stimulation).

All I know is I’m done. Done with COVID, done with arguing about COVID, done with the fear of COVID and done with the past year of COVID. And no, I’m not moving to Texas, unless of course I get a great job offer, and I will continue to wear masks and be safe and follow science but after this nightmare of a year, I’m ready to call it.

Tomorrow is Day 1, the first day of the rest of your life.