And that's done

 (I guess I missed posting last night? Well, there was a lot of drama - you may have heard about it - over on another place I hang out, a couple of mutuals have left and I will probably never hear from them again as they're NOT going to mastodon, which I have decided will be my sole social media when the birdsite tanks. And another friendly mutual got his public account suspended for poking the muskbear. And yes, I know social media is ephemeral - I used to hang out on Usenet, I used to hang out on the Beliefnet fora, I used to know more people on Ravelry and a lot of them left after the redesign and some other issues. But I have lost SO MANY people from my life in the past few years, and 2020 was basically a blank of zero human interaction, so any potential loss of future human interaction hits me very hard. Maybe I just start talking to myself again, like I did back in the days before the internet? I used to be better at spending time radically alone - I did in my undergrad years and was reasonably content, but then again: my whole life was still ahead of me AND I lived in a city where I could get almost anything I wanted with a short walk)

But now the semester is done. I just turned in my final grades. 

I feel just kind of flattened and sad. Maybe I'll feel better as I'm putting my clothes and the various knitting projects in the suitcase this afternoon, or tomorrow as I'm driving to the station, or once I'm on the train, or failing that, once I'm at my mom's house. But right now I'm just sort of discouraged. A few people, yes, did better than I hoped they would, and in the past that was always a little occasion for quiet rejoicing. (In my intro class, I had one person go from an F at midterms to a C after the final, because they apparently either studied harder or got a tutor, and another person pulled their D up to a respectable C). 

But also: I had someone that I did a little bit "extra" for (I can't go into details but it was basically an accommodation for something other than disability) who is now unhappy they didn't earn a better grade. And another person asked for a 3 percentage point bump (understand that in this class, that's like 20 earned points, or two homework assignments at full credit) and when I said "no" they did the classic "never hurts to ask, though!" response. (Oh, student. Oh. It DOES hurt to ask, it is just that it does not hurt YOU). 

But yes. I do feel tired and sad and kind of defeated. It was a hard semester in some ways - a lot of my students were struggling, I could tell, and struggling in a way they were not when we were deeper in the pandemic! I don't know if people back then were insulated by some degree of shock, or if there was more of a spirit of "well at least classes are some degree of normalcy" (in fall 2020, at the end of the semester, I had a couple students in my in-person classes thank me for making the effort, just because "it felt good not to have all my classes be online"). Or I wonder if now people are thinking "I hoped things would be better by now" (I am feeling a deep and existential despair as I read news stories of a building wave, and yes, I am taking a couple extra knitting projects with me, assuming my mom and I won't leave the house for much of anything other than grocery shopping.). Or, for the incoming students - the last 2 years of high school being mostly virtual has led to them not developing good study habits, or missing some of the background that earlier students had. 

I also think a lot of the emotional-and-mental support stuff that was done earlier has either evaporated (it has for faculty, there's no more "we appreciate you"'s or things to help us out, and we're expected to shoulder the big burdens of some of the admin tasks that have been devolved onto us along with teaching our three or four classes) and it seems a lot of the stuff for the students is now more lip service than anything. 

But it's hard and increasingly unrewarding and I am beginning to ask myself how much longer I can keep this up. I'm within a decade of retiring (well, 12 years, if medicare still exists then and I just want to transition from our pretty good BCBS insurance to it without having to deal with the intermediate and not so good one for retired teachers and faculty too young for medicare). 

I don't know. Maybe next semester will be better. But I seem to say that a lot: "maybe next week will be better" "maybe things will be easier next month" "maybe next year stuff will be looking up." I openly admit profound disappointment that the COVID vaccine didn't end COVID; that people can and do still get it (even if death is a lot less likely). A friend of my mom's has it right now - she went, unmasked, to an "escape room" party with a couple of vaccinated friends but apparently SOMEONE had covid, and she caught it. She's not VERY sick and got, I guess, paxlovid right away, and she hadn't seen my mom in person since before her exposure, so my mom is safe. But still - realizing that this has changed my life and how I calculate going out into the world FOREVER now, is bad.

Also, today I finished up a last few cards (to relatives, to a neighbor who sent me one, to a couple long time family friends) and I realized that I couldn't send one to Jo or to Charmaine - Jo died in 2021, Charmaine died this fall. And I was sad all over again. I've lost an *awful* lot of people since 2018, and I have met/made friends with very few - two new colleagues, the new minister and his wife, maybe one other person at church. But none of them are CLOSE friends in the way someone who had known me since I was in my 20s (or since I was a kid, in Charmaine's case).

I think also my father's death, still, makes me realize how few connections I have left. I am not close with my same-age cousins (the one on my dad's side of the family); most of them are making far more money than I do and are in very different professions and we have nothing to talk about. And on my mom's side, nearly all my cousins are dead - they were all much older than I was, and two of them were Vietnam veterans; one had poor physical health for the rest of his life; the other had poor mental health (and I never knew) until he died by suicide about 15 years ago. And my aunts on that side are gone. My brother and I are not even all that close - his life is very different from mine and he seems enough wrapped up in his family and what he is doing that I don't matter (like: my birthday present this year was 9 months late and apparently they haven't yet got me anything for Christmas)

And I realize: once my mom's gone, I have to figure out new traditions. How do you celebrate Christmas all alone? I did it in 2020 but that was an extreme situation. What DO long-time singles without children or grandchildren do? Do we just.....not celebrate? I mean there will be really no one to give presents to or get presents from, maybe there's no point in putting up decorations? Maybe I treat it as just another day? (And no, don't say 'volunteer.' I feel like I serve other people all the time; sometimes I want a little comfort and niceness just for MYSELF and it feels like....I don't know...telling me "well, no, you don't have anyone who loves you close by, so you should just go and give all your time away because that's the only thing you're worth now" hurts a lot). 

Some people malign the idea of "Friendsmas" but I wish I had a group of local friends in a similar state for that. 

I guess the answer is: plan on some big project to work on, get food ahead, stay home, watch the special programming, and try not to think too much about what I COULD have been doing on Christmas if my life had taken a different path. Or maybe I find out if any of the parks are open and if it's not too cold, go out hiking by myself? (I know they say that's risky but you know? At this point it's a risk I'm willing to take).

But at least this year I have my mom.

(She had an endodontist appointment yesterday - tooth failed under a crown - and I called her about 2 hours after the appointment and she wasn't home yet and even though I kept telling myself "it was a long way from her house and she's probably taking her time driving back, or she's stuck at the pharmacy waiting on her antibiotic prescription" - and it turned out that second one was right - my brain went to the dark place of "well wouldn't it be a kick in the teeth if she got in a car wreck and was in the hospital or worse, two days before I come for Christmas"

(She called back like 15 minutes after I left the message to say that there was some mix up with her prescription and she waited a long time but then got sick of waiting and told them she'd call tomorrow and get it then). 

But yeah. I think I'm still working through a certain level of trauma; I'm an anxious person at the best of times but having lost several people suddenly (and my dad wasn't so VERY sudden but it wasn't expected) in recent years that I'm having a very hard time trusting the universe to be even remotely friendly towards me. I hope that changes. Maybe it just takes more time. (And I don't know. I'd consider going back to the counselor, maybe, but I'm going to be terribly busy and also we have such a crisis in the state that people with far worse problems than my vague unhappiness at how the past few years turned out are not getting helped, and I feel like maybe I shouldn't push for it)

I DID feel better after Thanksgiving so maybe some time off is just what I need.