It's Monday, the last day of November, and it's raining like crazy outside. Normally, I would be getting ready for my afternoon class at 1 pm. (I started writing this at 12:15.) My classroom is currently in my basement. Our school system began the year with remote teaching/learning. What an interesting way to start at a new school after a year-long maternity leave!
Today, however, I am not teaching. Nor am I teaching tomorrow. Our school system (which serves about 115,000 students), is closed for classes today and tomorrow, and possibly the rest of the week. The system fell victim to a ransomware attack in the days leading up to the Thanksgiving weekend. I found out about it on social media, since our email and robocall systems were temporarily unusable. Last Wednesday I shutdown my computer (after having left it on overnight), and didn't look at it until this morning. Today I was advised to determine if my work computer was infected by following a set of steps, and sure enough, it was. My OneDrive, where I store most of my files, was also impacted. Years of work, possibly gone. I say possibly, with the glimmer of hope that perhaps the files can be recovered. It took a moment to let that all sink in, and once it did, I had a good cry. I'm coming to terms with the fact that maybe everything will be lost, in which case I am trying to let it go.
Writing is therapeutic to me. It helps to put my thoughts and feelings into perspective, by giving them the ability to be written or typed and read back. As I contemplate these thoughts and feelings, I validate them, then do my best to move forward. Sometimes it's easier than others. This year has been full of uncertainties, and I am thankful for my ability to assess what is in my control and what is not. I wonder about how others are doing right now, and how they are working through different experiences in their own lives.
It's hard to believe that my last blog post was in June. There is an ebb and flow with this blog, where sometimes I have so much that I want to write and I make it a priority, and other times I just don't make time for it. The additional responsibilities of remote teaching has taken up so much of my free time, that I am somewhat thankful for this unexpected break (minus the cyber attack and corrupted files and stuff). I'm finding the silver lining in all of this, which includes finding time to do the things that I've been putting aside.
In the spirit of letting go, as the blog title suggests, I have been spending the past few days sorting through items around the house that I'm no longer in need of. I've joined a few 'buy nothing' groups on Facebook, which have been great platforms for getting rid of stuff. A little while back I wrote about getting organized, and I think about the show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. I've gotten a lot better at getting rid of things over the years. I used to keep so much stuff, mainly for sentimental reasons, but then I realized that I would probably be just fine without it and eventually forget about it.
What are some things that you are learning to let go of?
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