Well hello there. Let’s just act like this is normal, okay?

As I write this, I am sitting in my office on campus, where I came to get a lot of course prep work done for my summer classes — until I discovered that apparently several of the videos I thought I needed to create had already been created in the fall 2020. And I forgot I had made them. I mean, thank you to past me and all, but …wow, my memory is not what it used to be. I suppose — in my brain’s defense — there was sort of a lot going on at that time.

Plenty of people have already made this observation over the last 14 months, but time sure feels difficult to apprehend, doesn’t it? As things start to open up again and vaccinated people start going out into the world more, there is this odd feeling that it has been either a decade or just a week or two since the last time. My husband and I went out on a date, to a restaurant, where other people cooked and cleaned up for us (y’all, it was beautiful) and it I felt like I had somehow stepped across some invisible boundary and onto another plane. 

Speaking of: last week, the twins had their “graduation” from preschool, a fact which has the natural consequence of inspiring moody ruminations on the very rude passage of time alternated with low-key anxieties about starting kindergarten in August. 

My brain: Will elementary schools still be masking next school year?  Will the twins be in the same classroom? How am I supposed to have them ready and at the bus stop by 6:48 AM? And, most importantly, am I really supposed to send my TINY BABIES on a BUS to a NEW SCHOOL we’ve never even BEEN INSIDE OF?

My brain: I’m sure it’s fine. 

My brain: Next thing you know, they’ll be driving! Is the next car I buy the one I’ll eventually pass down to them? 

My brain:  Of course not; there’s a new car shortage, so you’ll be driving this 2012 Hyundai until you die! 

Anyway, how are you?