We are going through a lot of transitions here, and we are all feeling the uncertainties, consciously in some cases, and rather more by energies in other cases. Everyone is a little on edge, especially the two who are starting new schools soon.
We had the eldest off in Texas for three weeks with family, where everything was looked-forward-to, comparative lap of luxury (own bedroom and own bathroom, undivided adult attention, and general cleanliness.) We fell into our non-eldest-routine, and the eldest fell into the solo routine. Then the eldest returned to the chaos of home.
And chaos it is. We are nearing the end of three weeks of bathroom renovation, meaning we have had no bathroom at home for almost three weeks. Porta potty in driveway - check. Gym memberships for adult showers - check. Rotating cast of Grandma and Grampa staying in the big studio to do construction work- check. Dust, tools, debris, noise, smells, and general horrible, inescapable mess- check. This is a lot, particularly for the smallest person who has never moved house and doesn't really remember any past construction projects. She was used to our leaky, moldy bathroom the way it was, and had no reason to want it different. (It is on the way to fabulous, but there are lots of loose ends which may drag on for a while.)
Next week eldest starts at a new school, so there are new routines, expectations, uncertainties, freedoms, and after-school considerations to work through.
The following week, the youngest starts at a different new school, and ditto all of the above. All the uncertainties and routines apply to the kids, but also to the parents.
And then middle kid and I will get into a new homeschool routine, but without the younger sister home. That will be both simpler and more difficult, cozier and lonelier. I will be his only playmate for many hours each day.
Next Sunday Jared and I play a wedding, then start the tetris of our fall teaching schedule. I have a couple of students who have dropped, and the online Dalcroze classes Jared has been teaching are no longer running, so that would seem to simplify things. Yet, we need to rework our group classes, increase some students' lesson lengths as they are advancing, and account for the new and unknown school routines with the kids and new professional orchestra gigs.
Jared is playing in two orchestras and is contracted for, I think, eleven concert cycles. I am hired for one of the same orchestras and am contracted for six concert cycles. This, then, creates some new childcare and scheduling issues, as the rehearsals are afternoons and evenings on school days, and will require not only supervision for our kids, but rescheduling of many lessons. I have the added unknown of being on the sub list for two other ensembles, and I have no idea if I will get called, how frequently I might get called, and how far in advance I might get called. We also have some more chamber music projects formulating in the wings, but nothing definite yet. They might be a definite joy.
I am on "vacation" right now, but I mostly feel exhausted and overwhelmed. I am behind on the clean&reorganize-the-tornado-sites-which-are-our-two-bedrooms-before-we-are-locked-into-the-fall-schedule project, and I have had little opportunity for deeply restorative time in nature. I will possibly feel better when I have the school year schedule better mapped out, but I can't really answer all my own questions until the kids have started their new schools and we have a sense of what this all looks like in practice. I don't know what everyone's energy levels and co-regulation needs might look like with the new set up, and the Coke bottle effect is very real and sometimes explosive in our house. The after-school hours are, by definition, the time we work to pay our rent... Somehow it all seems poorly thought-out and vaguely impossible. When will I see my kids? How will we feed them dinner? How will they go to bed while I am still teaching? How will my necessary walks and violin practice fit into it all?
Eventually we will tip (or perhaps tump) over into the new routine and everyone will eventually stabilize. Or we won't, and one or more of us will hit a crisis point and we will have to problem solve in new directions, and it will be just another crazy year thought up by someone whose long-term planning abilities are vague at best. No one really knows, and it will somehow happen...
