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The Pre-COVID Systems Were Toxic, and I Will Not Go Back
When my alarm goes off, it takes me a moment to pep-talk myself into slipping my feet out from the safety of my blankets and sit up. My husband, who has been working from our bedroom since the COVID-19 pandemic started truly lashing out at the world, will not be awake for a few more hours. I take some solace in the fact there is coffee automatically brewed in the kitchen, and in the fact that it is 6:30 a.m. in the morning instead of 3:45.
In a few short weeks, I know, the alarm likely will go back to the way it used to be. COVID is still churning through my state, but rates are not as horrendous as in other areas. And with President Trump and Betsy Devos putting pressure on the country to reopen schools, I have little doubt that administrators eventually will call my kids back to the classroom, even though we currently have a temporary digital option in my district for the fall. The idea does not settle well with me.
But it is not just the fear of getting and spreading virus through the school that makes my stomach turn, although that is bad enough. It is also the miserable apprehension of fatigue, the anxiety of knowing that I will leave the more relaxed school-at-home schedule behind, that four hours of sleep will return as my normal, and that each day will once again become a frantic quest to finish tasks in precious…
