The Fall quarter started last Monday. I loved that it coincided with the Fall Equinox. It made the feeling of change and beginnings more profound. This is (Hopefully, with a capital H) my last year of grad school, and so the feelings of beginnings and endings have merged. This left me with a weird sense of nostalgia, already missing certain things about my current life.
Do you know that feeling of motivation and productivity that you get when you return to school after the summer? I had that feeling on Monday, even though I spent the entire summer working, and even though I’m not taking classes anymore. But biking to my office on Monday morning, looking around at all the new, excited faces of Freshmen figuring out where their classes were, I felt a comparable sense of excitement. And then I picked up my son from daycare in the afternoon, and noticed that he wasn’t his usual active self. A while later, he developed a fever, and he ended up staying home until Friday.
The hopeful, imaginative part of me pictured my last first week of school differently, and staying home with my sick son didn’t fit that picture. What made it a bit more difficult was the unexpected, 3-day heatwave that prevented us from going outside to play. At the same time, there were a number of things that made that period smoother than I’d expected. Luckily, my son’s fever wasn’t caused by an infection, so with extra rest and occasional baby Tylenol (he LOVED the cherry flavor), my son recovered well. My husband and I are also fortunate to have flexible schedules, so we took turns taking care of our son while the other one worked. There were no pressing responsibilities that I needed to take care of at school, so it was nice to stay home and have a slower pace to my day while bonding with my son.
Friday came around, and my son went back to daycare and was welcomed back by his friends who missed him. Later in the day, my parents and brother flew in to San Francisco airport, and my son couldn’t contain his excitement. We haven’t seen them since the winter break, and it was such a beautiful feeling to be reunited with them after 8 months. My first week of school ended on a happy note.
I’m finishing this blog from home on Monday of the second week of classes. Next my laptop is a box of tissues, and a cup of hot black tea with dried sage. I seem to have caught whatever my son had last week. Sigh. No more expectations about what my ideal week would look like. At least this time, I only have myself to take care of. Plus, I get to be spoiled by my parents and have my mom’s chicken oat soup. I guess my body couldn’t have picked a better time to get sick.