The Winner Takes It All

Someone asked me today what I would do if I didn’t teach. I’d be a musician, I said. Or a writer. I will tell you, Reader, the truth. I’d be a figure skater. What a thrill that would be, dancing on ice with the cold wind blowing over me.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never been as overwhelmed by so many things in my life as I am right now.

My good friends at College Board decided to add a unit to the already packed content. I’ve never taught fluids before, and I don’t remember learning it in school. So I’ve been teaching myself fluid mechanics the last couple of weeks while trying to come up with materials and fun lab or two. I’ve achieved less than half of what I need to, and the new unit starts Monday.

And we’ve started getting the house ready to put on the market. Hired fix-it people and a cleaning crew. Haven’t packed yet. Staging this weekend because the house gets the lockbox Monday, when fluids starts.

I spend my days studying and my evenings scrambling to get the house done. I teach, too. But that’s been easy lately. The kids make it all better.

I am virtually taking a running leap off a cliff. Where will I be in two months? No clue. What will I be doing? Good question.

So I pretend I’m a figure skater gliding gracefully through the air, and sometimes I sneak down to the practice hall after work—a hidden corridor connected to tiny rooms, each with a piano to choose from. No one knows to look for me there. A little surreal, it is. Cathartic. Like ice skating on piano keys with no one around to steal my joy.

I’m the little engine that could. Come Monday, I will be the engine that did. Come May, I will be a fucking rockstar. Or dead.

I’m leaning toward rockstar. But even rockstars need sleep. My alarm goes off in 4.5 hours. It’s like I don’t stop, can’t stop. Sleep? It’s getting in my way.

I’m going to be a grandmother again in a few weeks, too. Lol. I’m like, 90 years old, careening toward homelessness and unemployment in a new town. I’m a juggernaut unraveling my life at light speed.

I’ll be better Monday. Or worse. If I disappear altogether, check the practice hall.