I mean, Adele really says it all.

Seriously though. I’ve been on a major (unintended) hiatus, and for anyone wanting me to hurry up and write some damn posts already, my sincerest apologies.

Boy, did I need this summer. The end of the school year was a little rough, and I really, really needed a break. I needed a string of do nothing, sit on the couch. two-nap days. And then I spent a lot of time planning my AP Psychology class, and at first I was like oh my god, this is so much work, I’m not gonna make it through the year. I also learned some things that blew my mind/upended whole hierarchies (did you know Carl Jung wrote Nazi propaganda during WWII while Freud was fleeing for his life? WTF?! I wrote like four papers on Jung in grad school alone). Now that I’ve started teaching the AP class, it’s still a lot of work, but it’s awesome to be in the room with kids who actively want to learn the thing you have to teach them.

We also traveled a bit this summer and that was awesome. We rented a house in North Carolina with the dude’s family, went hiking, and generally just hung out. It was super relaxing. A few weeks later, we did what we affectionately refer to as our Hometown Tour (or, well, I call it that. I think the dude the calls it “the Midwest trip”). We poked around his hometown for a day: went to his favorite restaurant, walked through his high school, drove through the place where his house used to be. We then drove and spent a few days with my mom in the town where I went to high school. On the way back to Chicago, we stopped in Iowa City, which is where I lived the first 13 years of my life. We stopped at the mom and pop ice cream shop by my childhood home, climbed on the playground at my elementary school, and generally had a good time. When we got back to Chicago, we hung out with my cousin and her family, which was awesome.

Coming back to school was relatively smooth, aside from the usual total exhaustion. I have to be honest though: the anxiety has definitely been rearing its head more often, and it’s scary and annoying. A few nights before bed or mornings when I wake up, I can feel that feeling in my chest: it’s like tightness and ache and unmeasurable expansion all at once. It’s weird and I don’t like it. I’ve even had to use my weighted blanket(which I LOVE) a couple of nights because of trouble sleeping.

I think this is a combination of things: going back to school and all that entails, my yoga schedule wasn’t great during August, and I haven’t written in a while, which means I haven’t been giving the anxiety its designated space. I’m hoping that as I settle into the school year, I can find regular time to write. I can’t promise, because I think between AP Psychology, revamping the 9th grade curriculum, and trying to have a life, this year is going to be batshit. But hey, maybe that means that I have to deal with anxiety a lot more than I did last year and so I’ll have more to write about. Who knows!

In the mean time, thanks for hanging with me. Y’all are amazing. I hope this is finding you on a day where you feel good; if not, please reach out. You’re not alone.

Poll: would you guys be into some different types of media stuff on here? More pictures (of me, not stupid stock photos), video, or maybe even a podcast type situation? I’m also thinking about doing some How To posts. Let me know in the comments!