I’m not ready for the new season. Getting up earlier, rushing through the same morning routine five days a week, none of that is appealing. I’m not excited about restarting the Zoom social group on Mondays after school. I’m not keen to pull out my raincoat and umbrella or even to shop for the new boots I will need. Yes, I am glad that the rain will start again as I know that it is desperately needed, I just don’t want to be walking in it to and from school every day. I am loathe to start advocating again, despite my promise to myself at the end of last school year that this year I would try harder. I know what’s required of me but don’t feel the energy I hoped I would with a new school year, one that held promise of being different. Instead I’m feeling the dread of the sameness. Another year of daily mask-washing, nose swabbing when the inevitable symptoms appear, potentially not seeing the inside of the school once again, hovering at the periphery of my daughter’s education, wondering about what is being accomplished. Another year of uncertainty and vigilance and being told what we can and can’t do. I know what helped me through the last one but resent the need to suck it up and persist through, once again. I just don’t want to.
But I will. I’ll continue the regular yoga practice. I’ll do the dance classes, show my vaccine passport and maybe even even use it to watch some dance in a theatre. I’ll keep scheduling the monthly Zoom chat with friends and continue to try (never successfully) to avoid leading the conversation to case counts, vaccines and the like. I’ll keep emptying a new box of puzzle pieces onto the dining room table. I’ll interact with parent acquaintances in PAC meetings, likely through a screen, again. I’ll put on the mask, over and over and over again. But I’ll never be quite ready for this season and all of its old familiar feelings, to be back.
