Jonah is getting ready for midterms with a particularly evil bio midterm on the horizon, so we couldn’t do any big family adventures this weekend. Steve took Ian to the movies, and I popped into Jonah’s room every 40 minutes or so to gauge his level of misery. In between the misery checks, I made a pot of chili and cleaned up.
I organized my office. I have stacks and stacks of paperwork for Ian. One of the annoying things about being a special ed parent is dealing with the volume of paper — IEPs, progress reports, information about after school activities and other nonsense. None of it can be thrown away, because you never know when you’ll need it for a lawyer. The paperwork stacks are oppressing me. They need folders and organization.
I also have about six big projects that get sporadic attention. There’s the website where I sell old books on the weekend. Should I put more effort into it? I have three half-finished manuscripts and proposals. An idea for a website that got revived last week. A folder for freelance article proposals. My primary job is dealing with the kids, so nothing else gets my 100 percent attention.
I pulled out all my folders in the bottom of half of the file cabinet. I vacummed the bottom of the drawer and started from scratch. I came across research from political science papers from 2006 in there. Info for jobs that I applied for in 2007. I tossed everything old and made new color-coded folders for the new plans and projects.
I sorted and tossed. I made a To Do list and ordered the goals. But sorting is easy. Following through on these goals is hard.
One evening, I met some high school friends for drinks. We didn’t know each other very well in high school, so they are more new friends than old. We reconnected through a reunion this fall and also through a high school Facebook page. There a certain windows of time when people are open to meeting new people. One time is when your kids are little and you need companionship with other parents. Nearly-50 seems to be another age of openness, because I suddenly have tons of invitations for get-togethers with my former classmates. These former acquaintances are looking for feedback about grown children, careers, divorces, and general life stuff. I’m having a marvelous time learning about the different paths that people took after high school. There are so many paths.
David Brooks has some great advice on helping people who are dealing with trauma. With all the socializing that I’ve been doing lately, I’ve heard a lot of traumatic stories. Brooks has some very good advice on how to be a good friend to those in traumatic situations.
So, I’m thinking and sorting and meeting and planning — perfect activities for grey January weekends.
Apt. 11d 
Not to sound like I’m shilling for a product or anything, but I have a rather unhealthy attachment to Neat Receipts. It’s a great way to get rid of the paper stacks — including kid-related medical and educational stuff. And if you get paid in dribbles and drabs for various writing projects (as I do as well), it’s great for organizing that as well.
I LOVE having some friends that are a good ten years older than us — We are in the thick of college apps and the rest with kids, and our older friends have kids who have graduated from college, gotten jobs, are getting married, etc. It’s awesome to hear that it all somehow works out in the end. I’m a bit concerned about where we will be when we end up being empty nesters, so that’s encouraging to know that that’s a point where people perhaps make new friends.
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“It’s awesome to hear that it all somehow works out in the end.” (not the end, of course), but, I too enjoy having friends with kids older than mine, and seeing that it all works out (and getting perspective even when it doesn’t).
The other day, someone asked me about advice, as a parent of an “older” child (7th grader, but, 7th graders are indeed much much older than 4th graders, or even 5th graders).
I thought the Brooks article was good, too, though as with other Brooks articles I do wonder about the extension of anecdote to generalities. The idea that people want presence rather than space confirms my own biases (with the belief that in the olden days, presence was automatic, because people had families, and churches, and small town communities which provided inescapable presence). But, is that generally true?
I am bad at providing presence, and, though I can try, doing so would be overcoming some significant aspects of my personality. But, the article did provide me an incentive to try, through the means I can provide.
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