Or in my case TWO!

Two days off of work due to snow!

(Can you tell I’m excited?)

I don’t usually appreciate getting texts at 4:49 AM, but in the case of MoCo telling me I don’t have to get out of bed, I’m totally okay with it.  I’m a little sad that the library is holding my next Percy Jackson book hostage, but really, if the library was open, then the schools would be open, and I would be at work, and I wouldn’t have the book anyway, so, it’s not like I’m really loosing out.

In certain cases, perspective really does matter.

Yesterday I trudged (yes, trudged, my sock had fallen in my boot and was rubbing the hell out of my heal) through the melting ice to the grocery store, because I wanted to make soup.

There are only 2 months when it would even be possible for me to know what the inside of a grocery store looks like on a Monday at 11:00 AM, and December isn’t one of those months.  What I saw was this: many senior citizens, and a lot of moms with school-aged children.  The senior citizens ignored me, but every few minutes one of the moms would give me the stink eye.  I guess my relaxed and unshowered demeanor gave away the fact that I had less work for the very same reason that they had more.  Had any of the moms asked me to explain why I felt so justified in being happy, I would have simply replied: “Ma’am, I’m sorry you have an interruption to your routine, I can sympathize, but I won’t apologize for being overjoyed that I can stay home today and make soup and drink cinnamon tea and work on my knitting.”

But it isn’t just randos at the store.  When I don’t work it is harder for my roommate to work.  She works from our living room.  I usually leave in the morning before she wakes up and I don’t come home in the evening until she’s done.  But when I have a weekday off, then I’m here: making noise, competing for bandwidth, using the toilet paper.  (Seriously, over the summer when I didn’t work we went through so much more toilet paper it was crazy!)   I don’t try to be in her way, but people being what they are and space being what it is, my presence is a significant change to her daily routine.  (Plus, I practice my scream therapy in my room.  Maybe that is a bit distracting for her?)

Some things are yes or no, black or white, right or wrong.  And other things just happen, and what they are depends on who you are.  I hate the moral relativism that directly results from purely emotional anecdotal argument; everyone has a friend, or an uncle, or a loose connection to whatever misfortune/poor choice you want to advocate for.  When someone starts a sentence “As a parent…” or “As a teacher…” or “As a wombat…” I immediately stop listening to them.  I want to reply “As Andrea, I don’t care.” no matter what they happen to be saying.  It’s a struggle for me to remember that they way people see things based on their experience actually matters in their understanding.

A few weeks ago I ended up telling two teachers and a parent at school that I’m a recovering alcoholic in what was probably the worst way possible.  In other circumstances I wouldn’t have told them at all, and the way it happened left me feeling vulnerable and horrified the next day.  I was so distracted that I walked to the mile and half to the grocery store in 30 degree weather without my debit card and ended up having to have the checker cancel the whole thing and running out of the store in tears.  (Am I the only one concerned by how many of my stories have to do with the grocery store?)  As time went on I kept thinking about what was making me so upset?  I wasn’t worried that these people were going to tell everyone and suddenly I would be the subject of gossip and scandal.  I wasn’t worried that it would put my job in danger; my Assistant Headmaster knows and doesn’t seem to think it affects my work.  I wasn’t even worried that these 3 people might think poorly of me.

What I came to was this: information enlarges experience, and experience deepens understanding.  The more information about myself that I give to others, the greater our experience is between one another.  And the greater that mutual experience, the more then will I understand them and in turn be understood by them.  I will become more real to them and they will become more real to me.

When another person is real you can’t ignore the snow day scenario.