Snow Days

Ah snow days! Sleeping in, bundling up, making snow angels and snow forts till your hands go numb, and then starting all over once you have warmed up with your favorite packet of Swiss Miss Instant Hot Cocoa!! Oh….what, you are an adult? Yeah, me too. My morning tends to be more…get up extra early if snow was predicted, bundle up, trudge out to the car, locate scrapper, clean off car with said scraper, pry open frozen car doors, warm up car, after 20 minutes screw the heat and drive off anyway, and SOMEHOW make it to work later than normal. Yes, as a child in the Midwest or anywhere to the north east of the Midwest, I and others dreamed, actually PRAYED, for snow days. As an adult in the same location I dread the snow and the idiots it brings out.

I know what you may be thinking. “This lady is a teacher! She doesn’t know what we go through. A tad bit of frozen precipitation hits the ground and she is back to being 8 years old again, not to worry about work at all!” Lets clear some things up…ONLY public school teachers get the perks of a snow day (well and some private school teachers as well.) But here I am sitting at my desk on this brisk snowy day wishing I was out throwing snow balls at passing cars and unsuspecting children. I do not get snow days, unless I would like to use PTO. It’s the cruel world of working for a non for profit agency that never closes. We are a 24-7 agency as we do have a residential program for developmentally disabled adults, and when you require 24 hours assistance, staff is not excused because of a wintery mix. But, much like the young child with in, I do enjoy these days. I have no students. They obviously got the day off. This leaves me in my quiet classroom to catch up on some real work, ahem, blogging.

But even while I sit here in the quiet peacefulness that I never get to experience in my classroom, I can’t help but reflect on why my priorities change. Why was once the fluffy white substance reason for celebration and now just an element waiting to mix with salt and discolor and corrode my car? Why as children can we appreciate such beauty, only to turn against it they day our tires hit the road? I never thought there would be a day where I would curse Mother Nature only due to the fact I have to trudge into work. I swore to myself as a child that I would always love the snow for its beauty and the endless creativity it provided me. In my ripe age of…errrr, later 20s, I have lost most of my inner child and have forgotten the promises I once made to myself. I can’t help but think my inner child was right…and I still need to hang on to a quote I try and live by:

“It takes a long time to become young”

These simple and sometimes confusing words were once said by Pablo Picasso. Now I am far from an art history major or philosopher, nor did this blog EVER promise such wisdom and insight. I do however feel it is important to remember the joy in our hearts we had as children and always strive to get back to that place, however long it may take us. The simple beauty of life when you are 8 is much more than it will ever be at the ripe age of whatever you may currently be. So as you slip and slide through the slush in a panic to get the last of the milk, bread and eggs, please remember that 20 years ago that this snow day was the BEST part of the entire winter school year.