There are no words

How quickly life can change.  From one minute to the next our world is fundamentally, forever different.  This happens all the time.  Anything can happen any time.  Your child can one minute be dancing in a sunny studio on a warm March day on a bucolic New England college campus...and the next minute be lying on the bricks 20 feet below, fighting for her life next to the lifeless, twisted body of her friend.  Your child can one minute be singing the alphabet song in first grade and the next minute....oh my god, it's too horrifying to imagine.

Maybe it's because I can't sleep and I'm worried about my sister who's having major surgery today, or maybe it's because I'm thinking about all of our kids being dropped off to school today by their parents, just like every other kid on every other day in every other town in America.  Things are more dramatic in the middle of the night maybe.  no, that's not it...this is real, this is not at all dramatic.

How are we supposed to make sense of this?  I want to get everyone I love together and hide, I want to go somewhere safe where people don't have guns, where people aren't mentally ill and want to fuck everything up so they feel better.  I know it's a juvenile way to think, but at 4 in the morning it's my impulse.  I don't feel very brave today.

I know that in a couple of hours I will be brave, I know I'll be able to be in the parking lot as parents drop their kids off, I know I'll give a lot of hugs this morning and I'll look parents in the eyes and tell them that their kids will be safe today.

I miss Mark so much right now.  I think that if we had to be apart for one more week during all this I'm not sure I could do it.  I'm really overwhelmed by everything; there's even more going on that I just can't put in this blog.  I'll be ok, I'll do what I need to do.  Most importantly, today I need to hug, reassure, just be there.  When Mark comes back to Connecticut on Friday I'll get my comfort from him.  And Lea Ann too, she's my rock these days, my voice of reason and my confidant.  What would I do without my lafm?

I was cleaning the basement yesterday morning and found a journal that I started in the winter of 2007 when I was still an assistant principal at Fermi high school.  I was really not loving that job and was seriously considering taking a year-long sabbatical.  Laura had actually put that idea in my head during a cab ride to JFK one day.  In my journal I made a list of all the things I would do if I had a year off.  Yoga, cooking, being in touch with old friends, hiking, reading, etc etc.  And then I took the job at Odyssey.  That was actually the last page that I wrote in that journal.  It's like I knew that I had one more job that I had to do before I was able to take a year off.  And now, in the blink of an eye, I'm 5 days away from my sabbatical.  Isn't life funny.  Not ha-ha funny, just so very strange and wonderful and terrifying and beautiful.

So now I'm going to make another cup of coffee and write some thank you notes to the families who got me lovely, thoughtful goodbye gifts.

This too shall pass.

My dear friend Lizzie once told me that someone wise in her life used that phrase when things were difficult, and today I'm remembering it and tryng to keep the meaning of it at the front of my mind. 

Yesterday morning a young father of two young Odyssey students passed away after a long, long battle with cancer.  His kids basically grew up knowing dad as a cancer-fighter.  Beautiful, smart kids with great smiles and a loving supportive family around them.  The school community rallied with donations...a few people from school went to their house last week to decorate and give them a tree.  It's so sad, such a hard time of year to lose someone you love. 

Today is Tuesday December 11.  Not counting the days I'll be in Rhode Island with my sister while she has surgery I'll be in school 6 more days.  I'm finishing up all of the teacher observations, going through all my files, both electronic and paper, and just basically soaking up what I can to have as memories of my time at Odyssey. 

December 10

Now it feels like I'm in the home stretch of this transititon.  Today is actually the last Monday that I'll ever work at Odyssey (early next week I'll be in RI to be with my sister).  The parent group is doing a gathering thing for me on Thursday...I did a big thing (for me) and asked Mark to come back east to be with me for that and he said yes.  I'll pick him up at 11pm on Wednesday night and he flies back to Denver on Friday morning.  I have no idea what Thursday night will be like, but I know that I'll be so thankful to have him with me. 

I have a lot to do before we pack the Sube and head west for the final time, so I've started making lists again.  Post office for change of address forms, final purge of the basement, which clothes I'll need between now and when the moving boxes are opened in...May?  June?  It's really impossible to know. 

I bought waterproof mascara.  I cried at work almost every day last week...not huge tears, just enough to wash off the mascara and leave me puffy-eyed.  This is a long goodbye and I have frequent opportunities to tell people what they mean to me and to hear what I mean to them.  Hence the tears.  Hence the waterproof mascara.  I just don't want to pretend that this is easier than it is, because it's not easy.  I know it's right and I know that moving to Boulder with Mark is a great adventure and that this is the right time for me to take my leave of Odyssey...but it's not even close to easy to say goodbye.