Resignation

Also, it snowed this weekend.  It's May, if you've lost track.

When COVID-19 shut everything down, I railed against it.  During the initial two weeks of closure, I colored the days black on our home-calendar, and used every glittery poop emoji sticker in my daughter's Justice sticker collection, to illustrate our feelings about the two-week shut-down.  There were also bio-hazard stickers in that collection.  We stuck those to the calendar, too, for the days of March 16- March 27th. 

It felt like the walls were closing in with the sudden stoppage of routine, of Zoe being ripped from in-person school, and my husband being told he couldn't practice dentistry.  I wondered if we'd all kill each other by the end of those first two weeks. 

I was still feeling the Hate as the second round of Kick-the-Closure-Can was announced.  We'd be down until April 9th.  But Zoe and I sat down and colored those closed-school days in rainbow, added glitter stickers.  We made the days look festive.  We figured we might as well hold onto Hope.  April 9th was supposed to be a half-day of school.  It was the Thursday before Easter.  That wouldn't be so bad.  Ease back into it with a half-day, then a weekend. 

You know the rest.  You're living it, too.  Everything shut down, indefinitely. 

You've been walking this Journey Through the Emotional Jungle right along with me, Friends.  I've had my good days where I can be chipper and try to buoy everyone up.  I've had my days where I've been wishing for a comet to swing by, so I could grab its tail and swing on off this planet.  I've had a lot of in-between days, where I'm just glad to exist to see the next day.  I've had days that I've felt almost normal.  I've spent swaths of days in the Dark, letting the mean-girl voices in my own head hurt my feelings.  I've had days where I've been Very Angry, felt Rage building up in my core like lava.

I think we're all experiencing some version of the same emotional loop, Friends.  Hopefully, maybe thank goodness we're not all on Very Angry on the same day.  Hopefully some of us can be Fairly Chipper on some days, to balance out the Dark, Twisty, Very Angry. 

On Friday, the Podunk Portion of PA went on Yellow Status.  Our Governor is adorable in his efforts to color-code a situation like your pal AprilBee.  He has neither the panache nor the whimsy nor the balls to give Pennsylvanians a true Color-Coded Situation experience the way I could.  But that's a rant for another time.  We have Red, Yella, and Green.  Red was the Utter Lockdown.  Yellow is Lockdown Lite, and Green is All Bets Are Off.  And I am sure like me, you're noticing some room for some nuance, and the addition of a few more colors in this plan. 

Without crying too much about our specific Blues, even though we were told the dentist's office can open back up, the wording in the lack of guideline hamstrings us almost as much as or more as the "Emergencies Only" order we've been operating under for the last couple months.  The Yellow Light opens up so many cans of worms, so many unwinnable situations. 

Don't misunderstand me.  I'm sitting here, boiling, thinking about all of this.  I'm overwhelmed and paralyzed, trying to come up with helpful suggestions for my husband, who's shouldering this on his own.  We just need more information.  There's so much at stake, reopening, and we don't know what's what.  We just need more information. 

So for the next couple weeks, at least, we're still pacing the floor and living under the same parameters as we did when we were in the Red Phase.

Red and Resigned.  That's how I feel overall, mostly.  Just like in traffic, the yellow lockdown light is awkward.  Do we stay or do we go?  Speed up to try to beat the red or jam on the brakes?  There are risks and rewards to both, but the rewards don't feel very rewardy right now.  So we're opting for More of the Same until we have further information.  And I'm just resigned to that.  Resigned.  This is what it is.  No sense struggling against it.

If you're also in a ho-hum mood this Monday, and wondering if you're experiencing "Resignation," you're not alone.  Just thought you should know. 

A Tale of Two Scales

Oh, Friends, I have to tell you something I did the other day that had me tied up in KNOTS.  It's kind of a parable for the way we as human-type-people cannot believe the evidence that's right in front of our eyes.

So.  I used to have a Fitbit Aria scale.  It's one of those smart-scales that you stand on and it takes weight and body fat percentage, then uploads it via WiFi to the Fitbit app, and I can track all those things over time, very easily, without having to type in my weight and BF%.  I had the Aria for years, and back in 2017, it stopped syncing.  It also wasn't weighing right, so I dragged back out the Tanita Body Fat Monitor Scale I've had since... Jeez, the Aughts.  That's a better scale, honestly.  It tracks everything from weight to body composition to BMI to body fat percentage, to bone density to percent of water in the body.  But it isn't a smart scale.  It's been around since before the first smart-scales.  I hold onto it because it's such a good scale.

But I like the way the Fitbit scales just upload their data to my Fitbit account.  I wear a Fitbit on my wrist constantly and I'm not that interesting of a person, so I don't mind the constant surveillance from my fitness trackers.  And back in January, Fitbit sent around a discount for the Aria 2, so I jumped on it and have been happily using my Aria 2 for all these crazy months of 2020 so far. 

Keep in mind, and this is important to this tale, that of course I don't get rid of the Tanita scale, and I also hadn't gotten rid of the original Aria.  And Aria and Aria2 look identical from their standing surfaces.

A couple weeks ago, my husband was doing some repairs in the master bathroom, and he had to move everything out of the way, including my cache of bathroom scales.  When he put everything back, he put back a square black glass smart scale that said "Aria" on it.  No big deal.  I've gone through something of a depressy period, the last few weeks, and haven't been working out or weighing in.  So I haven't stepped on the scale.  But Wednesday night, I got curious to see if all the depressy turmoil to my routine and eating and hydrating has had an appreciable difference on my weight, so I stepped on the Aria2 and... nothing.

Well, probably cheap starter-batteries, I thought.  I brought the scale downstairs Thursday morning and replaced the four batteries.  I couldn't get it to sync with my Fitbit App, so I tried to get it back on the wireless network.  It wouldn't pick up a signal.  So I found the "Help" section of the Fitbit website as it pertains to an Aria 2 scale and spent two hours trying to figure this out.  I was perplexed as to why the battery compartment on my Aria 2 held 4 AA batteries, while the illustration showed a more square compartment that held 3 AAs, and why the reset button wasn't readily accessible like the diagram showed.  I found a little hole in the back of the scale that lets you put an unbent paperclip into it, to reset the scale, and it would start the Setup Process.  It kept saying that our wireless network name was Verizon.

"Why is it saying Verizon?" asked my husband.  He's tech-savvy, so you bet I dragged him into this madness.  "We haven't had that router for years!"

"I know!" I screeched, frustrated tears running down my face and a good sweat-mustache on my upper lip.  "I got this stupid scale in JANUARY.  It shouldn't even know about the Verizon router!"

"Maybe it's something to do with the app," my husband said.

"It shouldn't be something with the stupid app!" I snapped.  "It knew which wireless network to use before I changed the batteries!  And I only got this thing in January!  Why did the batteries go dead in it already?"

"I don't know," he said, trying to find me helpful YouTube Aria 2 Troubleshooting videos.

He found them.  I was frustrated that my Aria 2 didn't look like the presenters' Aria 2s.  He pointed out that my Aria 2 didn't look like theirs, either.  We figured I must have gotten one on the beginning or end of a production run.  Out of frustration, I told the app to forget my Aria 2. 

"It's like we're not even talking about the same scale!!!"  I yelled, stomping both feet into the floor so hard it shook the dining room.  Then I looked at him.  "Wait a minute-"

I flew up the stairs and grabbed the other black Fitbit Scale, which was back in the place it's been since I retired it (but, didn't throw it out, because what if I need a broken smart-scale someday, apparently?)  I flipped it over.  THAT scale said "Aria2" on it, and the back of it looked familiar to me, as I'd been looking at schematics and videos with that exact flip-side for the last.  two.  hours.

"Jee.  Zusss," I said, carrying this scale back into the dining room.  "You're not going to believe this. The Aria2 has been up in the bathroom the whole time.  We've been trying to sync the old broken Aria Original all morning."

"Well, how'd that happen?" my husband asked. 

"When you put everything back, you put the Aria where the Aria 2 goes," I said.  "But I should probably just get rid of the Aria now."

"Probably," my husband said, moving on to things in his life more pressing than an impossible-to-sync-or-troubleshoot smart bathroom scale.

As though by magic, I got my Aria2 set back up and synced, and all is right in my world again, at least as far as smart-scales go.

What's bugged and intrigued me since is that it took me over two hours to figure out that I wasn't even using the correct scale, even though there were all kinds of signs to clue me in.  The back of the scale didn't look like the one in the pictures or troubleshooting videos.  The battery compartments were different.  The Aria had no reset button in the battery compartment; the reset button in the battery compartment of the Aria 2 was plain as day and unmissable.  There was that whole thing with the old scale using 4 batteries and the new one only using 3.

Why did it take two hours for it to occur to me to go up and grab the other Fitbit scale?  Just in case? 

Of course, this makes me feel ridiculous. Like a total idiot.  There was a quick and definitive fix to this gaffe.  But how many times in Life do any of us have a picture of What We Think Is Fact right there in our heads, and we fight so hard to hold onto that picture, despite all the evidence that points to the contrary?

We become hellbent that people don't like us, or that a certain person doesn't like us, even if all their words AND actions indicate otherwise.  OR we hold onto people we believe are friends, and believe the best of them, even as they plunge knives into us- there's always a justification, right?  Or we stick around in a fraught situation, whether it's a relationship, organization, or job, because we think this is just how it is for everyone in the same kind of relationship, club, or occupation. 

I don't know why we do this to ourselves, Friends.  I don't know why our brains let us hold on to our own mistaken beliefs while ignoring all the solid evidence that contradicts those beliefs.  Unless it's just more comfortable to stay in our own feedback loops.  They're familiar there. And stepping out of those feedback loops and listening to new evidence requires some heavy-duty work and effort on our part.  Taking action to correct our wrongs takes even more effort, and even some risk. 

I'll tell you why I didn't instantly go get the other Fitbit Scale when things weren't going right with the one I had right in my hands.  It was all the way upstairs.  I was downstairs.  It's silly to think about, considering I could have saved myself literally hours of frustration and stress and time, but I didn't want to traipse upstairs when I was downstairs.  In hindsight, I would have been so much farther ahead, if I'd done so.

At least all I have to feel over the Tale of Two Scales is an acute sense of feeling silly. Sheepishness.  Facepalm.  But it makes me wonder what other Big Contrary Facts I'm looking right at, but am too blind to see. 

The Optimism of Springtime Plants

These guys had a rough trip to my house!

Oh, heck.  Back in January, I got an email from Wayside Gardens about ordering spring flowers. It was an icy evening, and the light from outside was filtering cobalt blue through the windows, and there was snow swirling in the air.  

I thought I might as well order flowers for Spring.  This is sort of a ritual, with me.  The email from Wayside comes in January, with a nice, big, fat limited-time discount, and I order flowers to be planted in my containers, knowing they won't ship until May, when the weather becomes more temperate.  Everybody knows the weather becomes more temperate in May!  (HA!)  Then I slide the flower order to the back of my mind, and when the boxes of live flowers do finally show up in the Spring, it's like a little surprise that Past Me has sent to Present Me.  

What a delight!

Last year caught me off-guard.  I didn't jump on the Wayside email.  I think I was having a particularly petulant winter in 2018-2019.  Well, pissy, if you want to put a very fine point on things.  It was a combination of lingering illness and dithering over what to do about the plane and tying myself up in knots about what it meant to keep it and what it would mean if I sold it and let go of that part of my life for now.  I wasn't in a good place mentally in that winter, and the thought of planting flowers in the Spring was just too, too much optimism.  So I ended up waiting until June, after School was out, after all the more local nurseries had already had their flower-clear-out sales, and looking with dismay at my empty whiskey-barrel planters on the deck.  Zoe and I made a run up to Hornell Lowes and selected the best-looking overgrown and dried-out-looking Zinnias and pincushion flowers from their picked-over garden center.  It was touch-and-go for those flowers for a few weeks, but as Summer 2019 wore on, they thrived.  

Petunias do really well up here.  They've never been my favorite flowers.  I think I'm biased against them because they're everywhere.  But after a few years of planting flowers and noticing that the petunias take off like weeds, pretty much, they're my go-to, when I plan ahead.  I understand why they're everywhere.  They stand up to hot sun, and to the abuse of not being watered super-regularly.  They grow lots of colorful, trumpet-shaped flowers.  

So I jumped on the January Wayside email this year, before we knew that if 2019 was a ride on the Crazy Mouse, 2020 was going to be a ride on the Rabid Rat.  I mean, really.  It felt optimistic enough, ordering flowers for Spring when the air outside was cobalt blue and swirling with big white snowflakes.  Once 2020 really started to shape up, I'd think of those flowers I ordered and think about how nice it would be in May, when everything was back to some semblance of Normal.  It'd be a new beginning, planting those little baby petunias in my whiskey barrel planters, and we'd get to salvage the rest of 2020 and all this Pandemic Purgatory would be just a story we tell!

Wrong again.

I'd forgotten about the flowers by yesterday, honestly.  I got the School-Reach call and saw pictures of the flowers PTO sold as a fund-raiser.  I didn't know about the flower sale until well after I'd already loaded up on Wayside Petunias.  Those PTO flowers looked beautiful, and I was kicking myself for not ordering any, and I couldn't remember why it was that I hadn't ordered any.  Then my Wayside boxes showed up.

I'll tell you what.  As I unboxed those poor petunias, all I could think was that their condition was the most appropriate depiction of 2020 that I've seen yet, I think.

They were too big for their pots and root-bound.  Confined for too long in a small space.  Their leaves were pale and wilting.  Their stems were on the floppy side. They looked like they could use a good drink.

I expect mail-order plants to look less than spectacular upon arrival, but for these, I was Concerned as I carefully unwrapped them.  Even Sylvie, who usually brutalizes any plants that are in her way came over to where I was sitting on the floor.  She took a sniff, (I held my breath, waiting to see those teeth of hers bare), and she looked at me as if to say "They might be hopeless," then off she trotted.

But there's something about plants in Springtime that inspires even the smallest optimism, even when those plants have had a rough trip.  Even when we're supposed to get snow this weekend, and can't get those flowers in their final destinations.  

I stood those petunias in their too-petite pots up in my dishpans, and watered them with the kitchen-sink sprayer.  They rested in the sink overnight, and were looking a little more lively by morning.  Now they're hanging out in front of the French doors to get some warmth and sunlight while we wait out the weather.  

For the petunias, it's just a few more days of lockdown in too-small pots before they can get outside and live their normal lives.  

It's comforting, in a way, to see that things like dandelions and petunias and the rise and set of the sun go on, just the same.  

I have a feeling that once these travel-weary petunias get into their new digs, they'll green up and perk up and put on a spectacular show all summer long.  And that's the payoff of the optimism of springtime plants, Friends.

I Want To Be Where the People Are

Unfortunate resemblance to Ariel aside, I DO want to be where the people are!

Please don't get mad at me and flame me, Friends.  I'm not looking to pick a fight with anyone.  I'm just feeling some ugly feelings right now. 

I'm angry.  I'm frustrated.  I'm impatient.  I'm restless.  I'm bored.  I'm depressed.  I feel out of control.  I feel like a petulant, grounded thirteen-year-old.

I don't think I'm alone.  I think we're all feeling like this.

We're all sick of this, Friends.  Pandemic Purgatory.  I think we're sick of hearing about it.  We're sick of talking about it.  We're sick of living it.

I'm sick and tired of Zoom meetings.  Those things are only as good as people's skill with their microphones and cameras and their willingness not to mumble. 

I'm tired of take-out.  Don't get me wrong- I'm thankful that take-out is an option.  I'm grateful to have enough food.  It's nice sometimes to put on decent clothes and dine-in at an establishment. 

I'm tired of not being able to go to the skating rink.  I'm tired of having to drive past stores.  I'm tired of knowing if I do go into a store, I have to wear a mask and stick to The Essentials and Socially Distance.  I'm tired of driving to the school to drop off my daughter's work-packets and seeing the building silent and lifeless when, on these beautiful May Days, it should be positively Electric with activity and excitement that the school year is drawing to an end. 

I'm tired of the fact that there will be no proms, trips, in-person graduations this year. 

I'm tired of people being snapped at and chastised for voicing their disdain for being tired of Pandemic Purgatory, to be honest.  I'm tired of the sanctimony on both sides of this.  And here's why- I think we're all feeling restless.  I think we're ALL tired of all of this.  I think the "For F*ck's Sake Just Stay Home!" people are just as tired of Pandemic Purgatory as the "I Want A F*cking Haircut and Drink at the Bar!" people, but we're just voicing it in different ways, and everybody's just so invested in their particular flavor of Fed Uppitude at it all that they can't see that we're all saying basically the same thing. 

Everybody is TIRED OF, SICK OF the restrictions.  Of course saving lives is a priority to uphold.  Of course.  People are also concerned about their livelihoods.  How are they going to pay their bills, buy food, pay taxes?  Add to that, it doesn't seem likely that anybody has a bloody clue about what's happening or how best to handle it, especially not the people at the top who are calling the shots.  There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation getting disseminated.  Conflicting reports.  Conflicting advice.  Conflicting rules.  Fear is everywhere, and where there's fear, it often wears the mask of anger.  It is so easy to lash out when you're afraid and wearing the mask of anger.

Pandemic Purgatory isn't bringing out the best in any of us.  I don't suppose Purgatory would bring out people's best.  I just wish we could ALL step back and give each other room, without turning into a forest full of howler monkeys flinging shit at one another.  That's what my newsfeed feels like sometimes, especially in the comment section.  Just a bunch of howler monkeys flinging shit at one another.

It is possible to comply with the Pandemic Purgatory Restrictions, to follow the guidelines for social distancing and everything, while not "liking" to do so, one bit. 

Me?  Believe it or not, I just want to be where the people are.  Even taking into consideration all of this.  Especially taking into consideration all of this.  Because we are different with each other when we're in person.  Remember how, Before Corona, we'd roll our eyes at the Keyboard Warriors who talk big in the comments sections, but in person are actually quite reasonable to talk to?  Guess what?  We've all become Keyboard Warriors.  We've forgotten each other's humanity, and we've forgotten our own, because the only interactions we have are from the safety of being behind a screen.

I want to be where the people are, because once people start gathering again, it means that the worst is maybe behind us.  It'll mean we emerged from the fog, or maybe it lifted.  We all want to get back to... well, things are never going to be "normal" again.  I guess we all want to see that we'll get through this and be okay with whatever may come Next.  And once we all feel safe enough to gather again, we'll know we're there.  That's where I want to be.

I want to be part of THAT world.

Sittin' Here, Hurtin' My Own Damn Feelings

This is the face of a Jeep that has hurt its own feelings.

Well, Friends, guess what one of my superpowers is.  I mean one of the ones I'm really, really good at.  

If you guessed leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, you're wrong, unless I've stepped with my bare feet on a snake sunning itself on my sidewalk, but that's a story for another day, probably.

Nope.  One of my greatest superpowers is that I am just aces at hurting my own damn feelings.  Do you know what that's all about?

So when you hurt your own damn feelings, you take something that was said to you or a look that was flung at you, or you reflect upon some exchange you were part of, or maybe you get ruminating on something that honestly had nothing to do with you at all (upon further dissection and discovery at a later date), and you build this narrative around it where you talk yourself into thinking that the other person or people are mad at you or somehow hate you.  You replay a conversation through the lens of your own blooper reel and outtakes (which were talked about yesterday, in the Compare-n-Despair Arena) and you talk yourself into thinking that you were the ass, and that everybody else thinks you were the ass, too.  Or you convince yourself that someone hasn't called, texted, messaged, or turned up because they're just so damn sick of you that they're just going to ghost out of your life right now and fade to black.  And you get all worked up over that.  All mad at yourself.

I don't heckin' know.  There are a lot of ways to hurt your own feelings.  I think we're all kind of aces at it, to be honest.  Otherwise, there wouldn't be half the interpersonal drama that there is.  I do this myself.  I get myself all spooled up over something, ruminating over it in my own head until my heart is just aching, only to find out... from the person themselves, that whatever it was that triggered me hurtin' my own damn feelings was inconsequential, or not directed at me, or completely misinterpreted by me.

Another way I hurt my own feelings is when something goes wrong, and I pre-play the way I think the news will be received.  For example, one time, I was plowing snow with the tractor, and the three-point hitch broke.  I thought my husband was going to flip out and yell and scream and throw things when I told him, and I had myself all built up and practiced on how I'd respond and defend myself so that I was on Quite A High Horse by the time I actually got to talk to him and tell him about it.  I was so sure that he was going to yell at me that I ended up yelling at him as I told him about how it all happened.  

He was confused by the yelling, and took the news that the tractor was broken quite in stride.  It got fixed, and that was that.  In hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent so much time hurting my own feelings and then yelling instead of telling what happened.

I think the key to stop hurting our own feelings is to understand that each of us is the center of our own universe and only our own universe.  What I mean is that instead of that simplified elementary-school model of a solar system with a sun in the center and all the planets orbiting around it in neat, concentric rings, we're each a whole galaxy unto ourselves, and while we orbit someone else, they're orbiting us, and there are other people in other orbits.  There are no concentric rings, but just an infinite series of crossing paths.

I'm not being mean.  It can be a tough little pill to swallow, coming to the realization that one is not the center of all the orbits.  On the other hand, once we each can accept that we're only the center of our very own life, and all the people we're connected to is the center of their very own life, it starts to feel like quite an honor to be included in someone else's meandering path across the universe.  

So if it feels like people are ignoring you, that doesn't mean that you're just super-boring and you should bow out; it just means maybe everybody else is doing other things right now- maybe they're all sitting around, hurting their own feelings over something.  Maybe their toilet backed up and is overflowing all over everything.  I mean, that's a legitimate reason not to pay attention to someone else with laser-sharp focus, isn't it?  Or they're just living their own lives in the centers of their own universes, as is their right.

It probably isn't worth us sittin' here, hurtin' our own damn feelings over stuff.  If we could teach ourselves to silence those mean-girl voices in our heads, it would save us so much anguish and interpersonal turbulence.  So... be kind to yourselves today, Friends.  Don't let yourself hurt your own damn feelings!

Compare-n-Despair Arena

I've heard it said that "comparison steals your joy."

There's this group of people I know who do a thing that drives me nuts.  We'll be watching a show, or eating some meal, or listening to some song, or riding in a vehicle, and the'll say, "Which one of [these things we're watching, eating, listening to, or riding in] is better?  [This one now], or [that other one]?"

"I don't know," I'll mutter.  "I like them both?"

"No," they'll say.  "You've got to pick one.  One is better than the other.  Which one's better?"

"Hell if I know," I'll say, getting agitated and exasperated.  "In this moment, I like the one I have better than not having it at all, and making me compare the two is just pissing me off, so which is better in this moment?  Making me decide which one's better and getting into a big fight about it, or letting me just enjoy this thing in peace and not having a fight about it?"

"Jeez!  I was just asking!" they'll say.

It isn't enough to notice that the sky is blue today.  You have to muse on whether the blue of the sky today is bluer than the sky was yesterday.  Is the green grass this year greener than the green grass was last year?  Which is better?  Which is BETTER?  WHICH IS BETTER?!

I don't know.  I just don't know.  Dude, why does one thing always have to be better than another?  Can't they both be great for their own reasons?

But before I get too high-n-mighty about that particular flavor of comparing things, I have to admit that I've been a regular in the Compare-n-Despair Arena myself.  Maybe not in comparing which product is better, but in comparing myself against others.  And it really does bring on a sense of despair. 

It's easy to pin "Compare-n-Despair" on social media.  We've all heard the blah-blah-blah about how people only post idealized versions of themselves on social media, and then their friends and followers see those idealized versions and believe that the poster's reality must really be that ideal while the observer, knowing all his or her own messy stuff, compares his or her life, warts and all, to that glossy, idealized version of someone else's life.

I sum this up by saying "We only get to see other people's highlight reels while we have full access to our own bloopers and outtakes."

So we compare our lives as we know them to be and we despair because we don't think they measure up to the version of other people's lives that they present.

I do think there's something to social media contributing to compare-n-despair, but I don't think it's entirely at fault.  This has been going on long before social media became a Thing, though, hasn't it?  We just had to do it from closer range, maybe, back in the day. 

I remember being a kid and noticing that some of my classmates could do math without breaking a sweat, and for me, math tied me up in knots.  I'd compare my skills (or lack thereof) with their skills and despair that mine didn't measure up. 

There were cool, Popular Kids back in school, as I'm sure there are now, still.  Because my school was small, everybody played more than one role, so you'd see cool, Popular Kids also in with the sporty kids and the music nerds.  Our cool, Popular Kids weren't the feathered-blond-hair and popped-collar douchebags that turn up as cool, Popular Kids in every teen movie from the '80s, but there were kids who had ascended to the very apex of the high school social pyramid, even as they interacted with kids from all social strata.  I was not one of those apex CPKs.  I always wondered what I did wrong, why I didn't make that particular cut.  I'd compare their popularity to my lack of fitting in, and I'd despair.  I'd agonize. 

Same with the skinny girls/pretty girls/effortlessly talented girls.  I'd compare my lack of height, my dumb red hair and freckles, my need to put in a LOT of work just to be adequately proficient in something to what they had, and I'd despair. 

It really didn't get any better in college.  There were lots of people who were better writers than me.  They were smarter and more literary, far more clever.  I'd compare my mediocre work with their masterful works of heartbreaking genius and I'd despair.

How dare all these people have a better experience being them than I was having being me?  I mean, seriously?!

Well, again.  We only get to see everybody else's highlight reels while we're stuck with full access to our own bloopers and outtakes. 

But you can imagine my shock when I learned that I'm up on the JumboTron in others' Compare-n-Despair Arenas.  Me!  But why, though?  Don't they know I've got to be one of the top ten most insecure people on the planet?  Don't they know I was constantly compared to the Seinfeld character George Costanza when I was younger?  Not hilarious Jerry or crazy Kramer (thank Gawd, actually), not smart and sassy Elaine?  George Freakin-Loser-Ass Costanza.

Why on earth would anybody be comparing themselves to me and feeling bad about themselves? 

Because all they see is my highlight reel, and they have full access passes to all their own bloopers, outtakes, insecurities, and mistakes. 

It isn't always a bad thing to compare.  It's how we find the best prices.  Sometimes we learn new things by comparing.  Sometimes it DOES motivate us to address a weakness or shortcoming in ourselves.  But comparing too much steals joy from the moment.  And any time you step into Compare-n-Despair Arena, it's going to end in despair, most likely.

I think sometimes, you've really got to be aggressive about noticing what's GOOD with you, instead of comparing yourself to someone else.  If it's hard to find something that's good in yourself, ask someone else.  Sometimes we get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves and need some outside perspective to keep us out of Compare-n-Despair Arena.

The Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip

May was always a month of field trips back when I was in school, and it would have been a month of field trips this year, too, if everything hadn't gone all upside-down and sideways over the last few months.  Since our students and teachers in 2020 can't go anywhere on field trips this May, I'd like to bring you back in time with me to May 4, 1989, the day the Northern Potter Children's School Fifth Grade Class embarked on an historic trek to our State's Capital City: Harrisburg, Pee-Yay.

It was a memorable trip because we had to leave at 5AM in the Morning!  And we took TWO buses- one for section 5A and another for 5B.  We were going to the William Penn Museum, and then the State Capitol Building, and then we'd be eating dinner at McDonalds in Shamokin Dam on the way home.  We wouldn't be getting home until After Dark! 

Wowza! 

Yep!  We Fifth Graders had really hit the Big Time!

This is before Route 15 was a four-lane much past Williamsport.  I'd never actually been Down That Way, ever in my life, but it turned out to be a route I traveled a LOT less than a decade after this trip.  And I'll never forget the sign for English Center and Buttonwood, because it seemed like we'd been on the road FOREVAH and it was right around there that 5B's bus started having Trouble.  Something on the bus was "leaking like a sieve."

So instead of turning us all back and taking us home, the entire Fifth Grade piled on to 5A's bus, squeezing in 3 to a seat, and off we rolled on our way. 

Now, we were the class that was billed as "The Worst Class to Ever Go Through Northern Potter," somehow, the whole time we were in school.  I'm not sure what we actually did to earn this distinction but we knew our teachers weren't super-thrilled with being out-n-about with us under the best circumstances, and having us all crammed onto one hot, smelly school-bus was tense.

We pretty much had a blast, though.  I think all things considered, with the excitement, and the early leave-time, and the sudden quality-together-time with our entire class on one vehicle, I think Fifth Grade handled it all Very Well!

After what felt like even foreverer forever, we went through Duncannon and saw the replica Statue of Liberty in the Susquehanna River.  That caused quite a sensation.  I'm not sure about the rest of my class, but I hadn't been to such exotic places in my life!

We went on our tour at the William Penn Museum.  We got our picture taken on the marble stairs of the Capitol Building.  We ate our lunches From Home on the patio at the museum, and I think we all felt like big cheeses.  I know we got the biggest kick out of the word "Dam" in "Shamokin Dam" when we stopped for dinner at McDonalds on The Strip on Rts. 11/15.

The sky was turning purple and orange as we headed back up the road.  It had been a hot May 4th that year, and they let us open the bus windows on the way home, so the evening air breezed through the bus.  I remember a lot of chatter about all the things we'd seen that day.  I remember at some point, the driver slowed down and pointed out a huge herd of deer feeding on the side of a hill on the way home.  As advertised, we didn't get home until After Dark. 

That was the Really Really Famous Fifth Grade Field Trip of May 4, 1989.  I don't remember what Friday, May 5th brought to 5th Grade.  We must have been tired.  I know we were full of stories.

My heart breaks for the kids who aren't going on their long-awaited field trips this May.  There's always a certain uncomfortable factor when it comes to Travel, especially when classmates and school buses are concerned.  But that trip stuck with us for the rest of the time we were in school. I think it's stuck with us for our whole lives.  I hope that when we can travel again, there are still Field Trips, with 5 AM in the Morning AIS leave times.  I hope there are always teachers who can roll with things when things don't go to plan.

And I hope, after all the isolation and quarantining, that when we can Return, there will always be Classmates to make lifelong memories with.