Boomer Fragility

Boomer Fragility

Lots of people have been talking about how hard it is to have a child graduating from high school or college in this time of viral discontent.  I understand this, although I hasten to assure all of you that you have raised resilient kids.  Not so many people have expressed what it is like to prepare for semi-retirement in the Year of the Virus.  So, here I am to take care of this, after giving some general comments about the horrors of my current condition.  

I will actually write about White Fragility, the book and the phenomenon, at a later point because they shouldn't be in a semi-humerous post.  However, I have decided that boomer fragility is a pretty good description of my current state.  

First, the viral state has led me to New Hair Issues.  Boomers already have hair difficulty, as exemplified in the following picture:

Now,  after struggling during my 50's because I wasn't ready to look or feel like I was in my 50's, I  have decided to No Longer Dye My Hair.  I am old and fragile.

Next, I have changed my life with my ebike.  I am sure I will write more about this, but after three years of stubbornly saying that I want to do it on my own--a boomer philosophy if there every was one--I captitualited after watching a couple go wafting up the embankment on the trail in Merton while I struggled to walk my bike up.  My bike and I now have 710 miles together since Memorieal Day, and I couldn't be happier, but I was looking up some information about bike betteries last night and someone told a woman to "suck it up boomer" and ride on her own.  Apparently this is something like telling me I shouldn't have an SUV when we lived way out in the world of nowhere in New Yorl because I was creating too much of a carbon footprint.

And, finally, semi-retirement.  What a year to choose to do this--we all say "well, we have never seen this before!" but this time I would say appears to be true.  The year began with getting our kids into our new-old high school building and having DPI say they wouldn't give us our occupancy permit because there wasn't a crash bar on the one side of the front door.  All in favor of safety, but I will say the previous school was there happily for five years without said bar.  So, we crammed ourselves back into the old building/outsode/in the Harambee Center for three weeks.  At one point, while we carried my English class is a bag between buildings I mentioned to my kids that we were refugees again.  One of them said "We sure have been in these camps for a long time!"  

So we got back into our home in late September and proceeded to have multiple students fights (flying tables) a four alarm fire down the street, a boiler that malfunctioned and filled the building with acrid smoke, and then The Virus.  This boomer is less resilient than she used to be.  I would never have imagined that I would teach myself how to teach online in my last year of teaching and have very limited contact with physical students.  Students are, of course, why we do this.  It has ultimately been no less exhausting than traditional teaching.  Poor boomer teacher....

I am going to work mornings in the fall, doing tutoring, advising, and some mental health work  I am very excited about it, and so far it sounds like the good parts of school with grading and lesson plans.  We will see.  I am looking forward to being able to think about what comes next.