First Full Week

This week has overall been pretty intense. Monday, I went grocery shopping with S and then failed to do anything productive, at all, that entire evening. I laid on the couch, watched Season 3 of The Office and thought about grading papers [and believe me, they're piling up: an essay outline, study guide, extra credit and vocab for the 8th graders, and god only knows what--artifact projects and more for the 5th graders].

On Tuesday, I contemplated doing something more productive. Instead, my dad and I went to dinner at Innjoy and talked about how I'd asked for money for this Australia conference that I want to go to in January. God only knows if the school will give money to me--and if they'd even allow me to go to Israel following that [they fund trips to Israel for teachers so that we can learn about culture in a Jewish Day school environment]. But, we had some food, talked and then I went home and, as usual, didn't grade.

Wednesday, I had a good day at work but was frustrated because some of the teaching staff enjoys staying here extremely late. I don't know if it's a sign of dedication or inefficiency. Granted, the "team leader" has much more to do in any given day than I do, but, I still feel a little bit like other people judge me for not being here late at night. It's not my responsibility to do so. I love my job--I find some reason every day to leave smiling--but, I don't get paid to be here until 10 at night every night. It's fine, but I just don't. So on Wednesday, I busted out of here with ML [the 5th grade intern] and MD [my carpooler and fellow new teacher] and we went out to dinner and picked up MD's new tv. We had a great time sharing a couple of bottles of wine and simply relaxing together. It was great.

Thursday, I met with an old friend from the Sorority and did (a little bit of) grading. But, it was a loooong day. Today, however, is stressful because it's the big Shabbat lunch [I get very nervous because I don't know the blessings or anything like that and have to lead a table of little kiddies] and so much to pack in before we finish up the day. But, I am wearing new wool pants because it's cold as all heck outside. Today, I'll end up picking my dad up at work and hanging out with my parents tonight. [And watching the new "Office" episode because I missed it being out to dinner last night]. And of course, this weekend, I'm getting my hair dyed and hanging out with ANR. It's good to be busy; I've almost not missed CA to the point of explosion. Notice I say almost though.

It's been a good week though. The 5th graders were really excited about reading Chapter 6 of the book we're reading, In The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, because they're getting to talk about baseball together and there's a hilarious part where the Chinese immigrant [about whom the book is written] recites the pledge of allegiance. She recites it as "I pledge a lesson to the frog of the United States of America. And to the wee puppet for witches' hands, One Asian, in the vestibule, with just tea and sweet rice for all." The kids loved it and then we broke down the real pledge and talked about what it means and why, if Shirley understood the real meaning of the pledge, it would help her understand why she had to come to America. It was great. But today, it's Friday and I feel like we're not going to get anything done.

Family

Sometimes we all feel like the easiest and most sensible thing in the world would be to abandon our families. It's easier to sell them out, to talk poorly of them, to block them, to ignore them, because we know, in the end, they are our family, and they will come, crawling or running or slinking back because they are attached to us through dna and blood and perhaps the same nose. It's easy to hate them, because usually, they give us so much to hate. It's easy to be annoyed because we spend so much time listening to them rattle their keys or breathe too loudly. It's easy to be crushed by them because they know us, and our ways and our weaknesses.

But the thing is, they're family. There's always time to forgive, to move on, to move forward with them. There's always time to kiss and make up, to blow up and bandage or to revolt and relent. With family, there is always another moment. That is the worst and the best thing about family. We hate them because they know us too well, even when we feel like they don't understand us at all.

How many times have we, as a collective generation, screamed, "You just can't understand?" It took me longer than most to reach that point; I still find myself yelling it to my mother when she refuses to acknowledge the progression of my romantic relationship or the reason I actually can wear jeans to work. She over-shares about what it is like to be pregnant but refuses to tell me the story of how she met my father. She is awkwardly private and publicly hurtful. But in the end, whether she understands my day-to-day, she does understand in a way that no one else can because she was there in the beginning. She was there for the teen-angst. She was simply there.

My father, too, has been the victim of "not understanding." But he, too, understands because of morning breakfasts and steamy Saturdays eating McDonalds in the car while the windows fogged. Whether or not he doesn't understand why I sit in his car, breathing heavily, on the verge of a panic attack, doesn't mean he doesn't understand the root of my tiny Polish nose or the historic reason why I write poems.

Sometimes, I want to shrug them off, pretend like I could go somewhere else for the holidays and not have to deal with the fights or the bi-polar attitude. Sometimes, I wish all these things. But, other times, like last night when we were all eating pasta together and talking, I wish nothing more than continue making choices to be int hat place. We never know what to say to them, because there is a generational difference and sometimes they just can't understand. But the intimacy and the tie of the same fingertips or the same toes or the same way we brush our hair--that can never be replaced.