Befuddlement

 It's 46 degrees and raining, an abrupt and welcome change from the 97-99 degree highs we suffered all week. Like many other residents of the West, we hid in air conditioned houses and offices until the sun went down, blessedly earlier than it had in June and July. As someone who worries about climate change, I both appreciate and hate the AC. We have solar panels which produce much of the electricity needed for the house, but over the past summer our usage exceeded our production significantly. We have to figure out how to do better while staying cool, not an easy task in this day and age.

Life blooms with surprisingly difficult tasks these days. Trying to cancel my son's dentist appointment is just one example: I called to cancel, only to realize they were closed on Friday afternoons. I hit a text message to cancel, only to unwittingly auto-confirm it. Now I don't know if I'm committed (and on the hook to pay) or if I successfully withdrew.

Another shocker is sitting down to a dinner table absent of any children. Rob and I hold hands to say grace, filling a little silly and certainly bereft of other bodies. Sometimes we can't even get the words out as our eyes meet and then sweep away, self-conscious at hearing only our two voices in the room.

My brain is mixed up and full of three or four different jobs, trying to balance the calendar and respond to the right emails with the right information (and mindset). Fix the pitch deck for the screenplay and then switch to curriculum for swim schools, then run out the door with a workout for the Masters team... I haven't sent the wrong document yet, but the prospect looms and makes me anxious.

Which reminds me of a story my sister recounted earlier this week. She's a teacher in an elementary school and has noticed that many of the younger students appear wide-eyed and shocked at the need to navigate a large building with four classrooms per grade. In-person school may be a first for them, or they have had minimal exposure. She saw one youngster pulling a roller bag almost larger than his body down the wrong corridor, tears starting to roll down his cheeks. When she knelt and asked him what was wrong, he said, "I've lost my school! I've lost my school!"  Valiantly choking back chuckles, Karen helped him find his second-grade classroom.

I'm trying to avoid losing my school (and my mind) these days, but grateful at least for the cool weather today and a quiet day inside to pull my life together.