Put Your Head Down and Focus

As anyone who has read this blog for more than a minute knows, I’m no athlete.  Field day was my least favorite day in the school calendar year; I was a scholar and a musician.  I got my geek on and enjoyed it, all the way through school.  It’s why I became a teacher, I [...]

Knocking On the Door

It took me several days.  Days of mulling over the what ifs and the if onlys and the why the hell nots.  I looked through the window online a few more times, trying to envision my friend Dennis and what his life would be like now.  He’s older, of course.  Would he have grandchildren?  I [...]

Looking Through The Window

I don’t know what made me think of him last night. R is out of town, as he often is, and I was having myself a little Grey’s Anatomy marathon on my computer.  Me, myself and a bottle of wine hunkered down after the children went to bed, and I fantasized about happy endings with [...]

Not Quite the Fantasy

I walked alone out of the banquet hall, gathering my shawl around me against the chilly Michigan October evening. I wasn’t sure exactly what I had expected out of my 20th high school reunion. I had gone for many of the same reasons that I had gone to my five year one:  to prove something. [...]

Z Graduates

I looked around the table, my eyes shining with tears. Z had gone off with his friends to dance.  He had a large group of about twenty friends who had all banded together and asked their parents if we could reserve a room at the local country club for their post graduation dinner.  There they [...]

A Different Path

“Mom, look at this.” Z handed me an envelope.  It was oversized, and the return address was the University of Pittsburgh.  He hadn’t opened it yet. Helping Zach apply to colleges last fall had been an overwhelming experience for me.  It was a constant series of flashbacks to my own time doing the same thing. [...]

First Day of School

I got in my car and followed the school bus.  R followed me in his car, both of us nervous and wanting to make sure that Michael didn’t freak out or meltdown on his first day of kindergarten. It was a big day at our house, a warm late August day.  R had almost missed [...]

Internet Searches and Quiet Moments

It was quiet in the house on the mornings the kids were at preschool, and Z was at high school. It was strange , after years of working for Rick while trying to keep the babies occupied so I could spend hours on my computer, that now that I finally did have the time, there [...]

High School Musings

It was early in the morning, barely even light outside yet, but I could hear my son’s alarm go off down the hall.  I popped out of bed in time to see him sleepily stumble to his bathroom while the rest of the house slumbered. It was Zach’s first day of high school today. I [...]

What Comes Next

I was sitting in the same classroom I’d sat in ten years ago, a student once again. I could see Mr. Vance’s handwriting still on the chalkboard, the same lessons as when I took his Advanced Composition II class:  weekly vocabulary drills to prepare us for the SATs, journal assignments about current events to be [...]