Hello

Coming out of my funk, finally. The last month or so has been pretty emotionally draining at school, and yesterday I felt like I was going to fall asleep walking down the hall. There is one particular situation that has been so awful, so sad, and so completely out of our control that it just seems to be draining my energy. When I come home I just want to sleep. It's taken all my effort just to be present, much less engaged. And the guilt from just being half-there for my family was eating me up.

But the other day, when we got the worst possible news about one student, I finally cried a bit on the way home, and some still small voice said "just do what you can do", and I've been trying to listen. And yesterday, after I got home, I had sort of a renewed sense of energy, and felt that I was finally, finally in the room with my loved ones.

Last night, I fell asleep with Joe-Henry after we played a game of "Yahtzee Wild", and I woke up at 2:00 a.m. Blinking, I looked up and saw the glow-in-the-dark stars in the milky way pattern on his ceiling. They looked so pretty, and I'd never seen them so bright. He must have sensed that I was awake, because in his sleep, he snuggled closer, and doing something he hasn't done since he was a baby, he wrapped his fist in my hair. I laid there five minutes, soaking it up, before extricating myself and padding down the hall to my own bed, where the cats were doing their best to keep Charley from taking up the whole bed.

I feel more rested today than I have in a long time.