Thursday: I woke up this morning and I just couldn't. I know that could (and by association couldn't) is an auxiliary verb, usually accompanied by another verb. But I just couldn't. Anything, at all. Full stop.
Of course I did anyway. I did the things I had to do starting with the hardest, which was to get out of bed. It's 9 PM now and so I can stop. Until tomorrow.
*****
Friday: You know those little separator things that they have at the grocery store checkout line? And you get in line and the person ahead of you takes one and places it behind their order, and you always say thank you to that person? I used to wonder why people said thank you, because it seemed that that person was only making sure that they didn't inadvertently pay for your groceries. But saying thank you is what you do in that situation. So much is this ingrained in my code of etiquette that I would be slightly offended if the person behind me in the checkout line failed to say thank you when I placed the divider between our orders.
This morning, I felt so despairingly wretchedly awful. I wrote all about it. And then I erased it, sparing you my dark night of the soul. You don't have to thank me.
*****
Saturday: That was fun, wasn't it?
My son's senior prom was last night. He had a good time. Prom isn't what it was when I was young, and in many ways, that's a good thing. I grew up in the city, and only a handful of my classmates could drive. Most of us didn't learn to drive until college or even after. In the suburbs, though, kids drive at age 16 (age 16 and six months in Maryland). When I first moved here, it seemed that every May and June would bring terrible news of late-night car crashes that would kill high school seniors days before or after their high school graduations. And this still happens but maybe not as much as it did 20 years ago thanks in part to school-sponsored after-prom parties.
At Rockville High School, kids aren't even allowed to drive to the prom. They meet at the local rec center, where buses take them to the prom. It's a great equalizer. After the prom, the buses drop them off at the same rec center for the after-prom party.
I'll spare you all the details surrounding security and calls to parents when kids leave the party early. Just know that it's a huge volunteer effort, with over a hundred parents arriving at 6:30 or so to decorate and get the food set up, then work at the party itself from 11:30 to 3, and then clean up the rec center beginning at 3 AM. Senior parents are not supposed to be at the party, and I didn't feel like being part of the cheerful set-up crowd, so I volunteered for graveyard duty, and arrived at the rec center at 3 AM.
I'm not part of the in crowd at my son's high school. That's not a complaint or anything. They're all very lovely people, and I have made friends with a few band and swim team parents. But most of them have known each other since their children were in kindergarten. For safety reasons associated with my husband's police work, we had to move our children from our neighborhood high school to another nearby high school, so he started as a freshman surrounded by kids who had already been in school together for nine years. It's hard for introverted people to break into a new crowd, and we are introverted people.
Another senior parent was leading the clean-up crew. I know her to speak to. She's lived in this neighborhood for her whole life, and is always at the center of every crowd and every conversation. She's pretty and outgoing and stylish and has beautiful hair. And when she greeted me by name last night, and started the usual "can you believe our babies are graduating" conversation with me, I felt like the walliest of wallflowers, welcomed into the royal court by the reigning prom queen.
via GIPHY
It's all high school, isn't it?
Anyway, we were finished cleaning up by 4:30; and by 5:00, I was back in bed, where I stayed until 9:30. And everything seems almost fine again. Grool.
No comments:
Post a Comment