I bet you’re thinking that I forgot, aren’t you?

Or worse: that I remembered, but decided to just blow you off, to ignore the promise I made that I would be on time with the next blog.

It would make sense if you thought either of those things: since here I am, not only a few days late, but two full weeks. I broke my promise. Missed a post. Missed a deadline. Twice. (Almost three times, but as this is Monday, and a new year, I’m giving myself enough slack to consider this one on time.) I flaked, I slacked, I failed.

Nope. I broke my house. And I had to deal with the holidays.

I don’t want to get into too much detail, partly because it isn’t just my house, it is also my wife’s, and I don’t mean to take away her privacy by talking about things that concern her as if they are only my issue; and also because the insurance is still considering our claim, and I don’t want to do something like claim fault that could potentially screw up that claim. I am clearly going to have to write about insurance at some point in the near future.

And to be clear: it was not my fault. But it is the reason why I have missed now two deadlines for posts, on the last two Sundays.

Friday the 16th was a rough day. It was the workday after the end of the fall semester, and so I had grading to do. Because I believe in grading students based on their work rather than their adherence to deadlines, I always have extra late work to grade; because I teach AP, which are supposed to be rigorous classes designed to prepare students for a rigorous test, I give final exams in the last week. And because this has been a tough month, I fell behind on my grading. All of which meant that I had a ton of work to do on the last workday of the semester before grades were due — and I am still planning to write about how teachers have too much responsibility and too much work. And then my administration raised the difficulty level for me: because they set the grade deadline at midnight on Friday the 16th, at the end of the last week of classes, at the end of one teacher workday for grading and finishing up the semester’s paperwork.

To be clear: the grade deadline is arbitrary. There is no requirement from the state Department of Education, or any other regulatory body, as to when grades must be finalized. Schools are required to provide grades or something equivalent in a timely manner, of course; but what does that mean? Does that mean the final grades must be complete within 36 hours of the last bell releasing students? Of course not. In comparison to other local districts, we got out of school a week early — Tucson Unified, the largest public district in the county, had classes up to the 22nd — and even if you want grades completed by the next business day, which for us would have been Monday the 19th, is there any reason why those grades couldn’t be collected by midnight on Sunday? Of course not.

But for no good reason, the person in charge decided it had to be midnight Friday. So I tried, as hard as I could, to get everything graded by midnight Friday — to be clear, not to please the administration, but because after the grading deadline, the window to update and post grades would close, and I wouldn’t be able to add anything else to my students’ semester grades. They did the work, they deserve the grade (Or they didn’t do the work, and they deserve that grade [Caveat here: anyone “deserving” a grade is pretty antithetical to my view of education, but hold off on that for now. You get my point.]): so I had to get everything done before the deadline. I started grading when I got up at 6am on Friday, and other than breaks for meals (and a VERY valuable hour-plus spent commuting to school and back home, because the same administration (Not the same specific administrator, but it might as well be) insists that we go into work even on days without students, and also wanted to have a VERY valuable staff meeting in person, at which they introduced us to new staff members [Totally different subject, but my school lost four staff members mid-year, for various reasons, which almost never happens in schools because contracts are for the whole school year and we generally strive for continuity — but this is the second year in a row in which we have gone through this mid-year staffing issue. Four staff members is roughly 10%. Second full year we’ve had this 10% staff turnover midyear, after the pandemic shutdown — but surely that’s just coincidence.] and bid farewell to those leaving. Then they wished us a happy and restful vacation. As my students say: LOL.) I continued grading for the next 16 hours. At 10:45pm, I received the email which informed me that the grading deadline had been moved to midnight Sunday. And I went to bed.

Saturday morning I was back to grading; fortunately, there really wasn’t much left, and I soon had it all done, including the last-minute stragglers. And then, to start off my vacation, I headed over to a friend’s house to help him string Christmas lights and drain his reservoir of available beer. But partway there, I got a text message from my wife: the kitchen faucet, which had been leaking, had suddenly gotten worse, actually spraying water when she turned it on. So I turned around and came home to fix the leak. No problem: I have changed kitchen faucets before. My wife and I headed out to Home Depot, bought a faucet that seemed reasonable, and I went to work.

And when I tried to turn off the water under the sink, the hot water valve broke off in my hand.

The next segment of time seemed like forever, though it was not very long. Hot water was spurting out of the pipe end, spraying me, spraying the kitchen; fortunately it wasn’t scalding hot, but it was a LOT of water. I ran outside to turn the water off where it comes into the house — only to find that this house doesn’t have a cutoff valve at that usual spot. I ran to the driveway to turn off the water to the whole house — only to find that what I thought was the main water valve was only a junction for a defunct sprinkler system. I ran around literally yelling “I don’t know what to do!” along with the loudest profanity I think has ever come out of me, while my wife and I tried desperately to catch the water, to use a hose to redirect the water that was soaking our kitchen and puddling in the living room. My wife ran to our neighbor’s house, asked him if he knew where the water cutoff was — and he did! It was in back of the house, in the alley. So I ran back there, to meet him because he had the tool to open the cover and turn the valve if it was stuck.

It wasn’t stuck. It wasn’t there.

This wonderful neighbor did eventually find the main water cutoff: it was in the alley, where he said; it was just buried under a good two inches of dirt. He unburied it, turned off the water, and ended the crisis.

Then we started the cleanup. A plumber came out that night, on Saturday, and told us the pipe couldn’t be fixed without tearing out the wall; he recommended that we contact a restorationist to deal with the water damage, and said we could either fix the pipes when the restorationist tore the kitchen apart — or we could repipe the entire house. (If there’s been good news in this, it is that we do not need to repipe the house.) Because he couldn’t even get the replacement parts, it being Saturday evening after the hardware stores closed, he left without fixing the hot water pipe. Though also without charging us, so I don’t have any complaints about that. I did have complaints about not having working hot water, and a flooded house. In December. Over the holidays.

My amazing friend Tim (The one I had been headed to help string lights and drink beer) came over that evening with a shop vac and helped us clean up the water; he also showed me how to turn off the hot water at the water heater, so we could have cold water, at least. Which let us stay in the house for the night, which was good for our pets, if not necessarily for us. He and his wife also gave us lasagna and invited us over in the morning to get a hot shower. And then the next day, Tim came over and fixed the broken pipe, thereby saving us hundreds or thousands of dollars in plumbing bills. I can’t thank him enough. I am doing my best to thank him as much as I can. (By the way, Tim, if you read this, my dad said he’s proud of you.)

The issue of the water damage to the house is the focus of the insurance claim, which as I said is ongoing; suffice it to say that insurance claims are never fun, not even when they pay out. There are investigations and reports and deductibles, and worst of all for my introverted little family (My dogs are both extroverts: but they didn’t like this either, because they are also territorial), there have been people coming into our house essentially every day since it happened. As I write this, it’s been five days since people were here — but there’s another coming over on Friday. And who knows how many more, over how much longer, after that.

So. That was the first Sunday I missed a deadline. I was too busy trying to unbreak my house (I do apologize for the reference, but the words came out and I had no choice but to link it) and deal with my what I can only describe as trauma. I don’t mean to exaggerate it, or minimize what other people have gone through that is so much worse than just a broken water pipe; but honestly, I have never felt so much anxiety and so much guilt so intensely in one period.

And then for the next week, while we were trying to handle the fallout from the damage, my wife and I also tried to deal with the holidays.

Which is what I want to talk about now, today, when they are finally fucking over — and I am almost as relieved about that as I am about the house. Though of course, the house issue is still ongoing: and those goddamn holidays aren’t finished yet, because I still have to go back to work and answer every single person who asks me how my vacation was. And since I teach high school, that’s going to be a lot of people asking about that. And since I try to foster an atmosphere of open dialogue, and I model that by trying to be open and honest about myself and what I’m doing at the moment, I try to answer all of their questions honestly and completely; so I can’t just write on my board “Don’t ask me about the vacation” or something similar. I am just going to have to relive it in every single class period.

The thing that made the house problem so difficult for me was guilt. I felt responsible for the broken pipe — even though, again, I am definitely not responsible for it — because it broke off in my hand, so I keep telling myself it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t tried to turn off the water to the sink. But much worse than that is the guilt I feel because I didn’t know what to do afterwards. For years, I have been telling myself that I am good in a crisis, that I keep my head and take the correct steps when the shit hits the fan; and that has, generally, been true. I have been through two housefires, and have extinguished both; I have dealt with medical emergencies in my classroom; I have stopped student fights, including a potential knife fight (They were just posturing, but they did both have knives.) without anyone getting hurt. It’s a minor list compared to what, say, emergency personnel deal with; but still, I have handled those situations and others — I am particularly good at handling emotional crises, considering what I do and the kind of person I am, and I still think I’m good in those emergencies — and done it well.

But this time, I was completely useless. I had no idea what to do, and I didn’t even know who to ask for help. If my wife hadn’t gone to the neighbor, who knew where the water cutoff valve was, I honestly have no idea what I would have done. Called the city water? Asked them to cut off the whole block? I don’t know. Which fact just makes it worse: I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t handle it well. And I feel guilty about that.

And that same stupid, useless feeling of guilt is how I and my wife and countless other people feel about the holidays.

Because Christmas and New Year’s, and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice (and Festivus), are supposed to be happy times. Joy to the World, and we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for Auld Lang Syne. My wife and I had had a rough fall, because of school and family and everything else that makes life difficult; and we were really looking forward to this break. We needed the vacation, and we needed the happy times. We were going to decorate the house, go shopping for interesting presents for each other, send out Christmas cards to everyone; we were going to spend some time exploring Tucson, going to various holiday events and so on. So it wasn’t just the expectations from others: we had the expectations ourselves, and they were pretty intense.

But of course, we didn’t do any of that. I did put up lights outside the house, which I’m happy about; and we did manage to do a little shopping for gifts for each other and for our pets. But that was it. We watched a couple of Christmas movies, hiding in our bedroom because our house was full of large, loud machines trying to dry out the water damage. We did not have the time, energy, money, or mental space to live up to all of ours and others’ expectations this year.

Which is why I missed the second post deadline: I tried to write this post on Christmas morning, I did; but I couldn’t handle it, and I had to stop. I would have posted it the next day, on Boxing Day, but the house crisis heated up that morning, and instead I had what was pretty close to a panic attack. I cried, which is unusual for me. Not a good day for blogging.

It was not a merry Christmas.

But the point is, that isn’t just this year, and it wasn’t just because our house was broken.

Christmas and the holiday season are always fraught with expectations: and really, we never live up to them. The holidays never live up to their own hype, and neither do any of us. The decorations are never as cool as we want them to be; the presents are never quite as wonderful and inspiring as we hope they will be. If we see relatives, it’s not as much fun as we want it to be; if we get to spend the time alone, it’s never as long or as peaceful and relaxing as it should be. Pretty much all of that is because our expectations of the holidays are simply too high.

That’s probably why my favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Story: because Ralphie gets his Red Ryder BB Gun at last — and immediately hurts himself. He has literally no fun with that thing, at least not as far as we see in the movie. The family loses their Christmas dinner, the lamp gets broken but repaired so that both parents are upset about it: basically, their holiday sucks. I relate to that.

But much of the issue is that we don’t only put those expectations on ourselves: we do, and that’s a problem; but at least when I look at my Christmas lights and think they are lame, I can also tell myself, “But come on, you’re no electrical engineer. What did you expect, the Las Vegas strip? This?” Of course not: and so I am able to talk myself out of those unreasonable expectations. But I can’t stop other people from looking at my lights and thinking, “Wow those are lame.” I can’t stop people from asking about our holiday plans: and then being disappointed in whatever we say. I can’t stop my family from calling me over the holidays and asking about what activities we did, what food we ate, what gifts we gave and received; and then being disappointed in everything we say.

I can’t solve the ever-present issue I face as a teacher, which all of us face in our own workplaces but is somewhat intensified for teachers because we work with children: do I decorate for Christmas? Do I wear festive holiday clothes? Do I participate in Secret Santa and holiday potlucks? It’s a little more intense with teachers because people have more intense expectations around children and the holidays — and I realize my wife and I are lucky that we don’t have kids to carry through all this shit, this year (But also, that wasn’t luck, it was an intentional choice on our part, and right now, it was a good one and I’m quite happy with it) — and so they put those expectations on teachers since we are around their children. This isn’t new, of course, and it isn’t unique to the holidays: but again, it is more intense during the holiday season. I am expected to be jolly for THE CHILDREN, and to dress up in my ugly Christmas sweater — but also, to value and celebrate all of their diversity as people (as CHILDREN) of different cultures and traditions, so not to go too hard on the Christmas music in my classroom, for instance. (I generally play Heavy Metal Christmas music in school when I have the chance. I think it strikes a nice balance between living up to the expectations of those who want traditional Christmas trappings, and those who want to subvert them.)

And the big issue, for us this year and for too many people every year: what if you just don’t fucking feel like Christmas? What if you’re sad? What if your house is broken? What if you don’t want to be around people? What if you’re broke and you can’t afford Christmas presents? What if you don’t like Christmas movies or Christmas music or Christmas decorations? What if you’re a vegetarian and you don’t eat turkey? What if you have troubled relationships with your family — or no relationships? Or no family?

Do you really need to explain that to every single person who asks what you plan to do for Christmas this year? Or to every single person who asks how your holidays were this year? Should you really have to listen to the Hallmark movies, and the commercials, and the newscasters, and the random passersby in life or on social media, telling us that the holidays always bring people together, for a time of celebration and joy with our loved ones?

No. Fuck that. Fuck — and I say this with nothing but kindness in my heart — all of you people who ask about how the holidays were. Wish me a merry Christmas, or happy holidays; that’s lovely, thank you for the pleasant wishes. Hopefully you do the same when it isn’t holiday season, and you wish people a good day often and sincerely; but regardless, I accept and appreciate kind wishes. But don’t fucking ask me about my holiday, neither before nor after. And not just this year, but every year. Stop expecting me to have a big story to tell about my holiday plans, stop angling for a way to tell your big story if I didn’t ask about it; if we’re friends, go ahead and tell me — and if we’re not, go find a friend to tell it to. Stop expecting anything of me for the holidays. Then maybe I can stop expecting big happiness and joy for my entire world, every year.

And maybe I can just relax.

Thank you, if you didn’t give up on me over the last couple of weeks; and I do, sincerely, wish you a happy New Year and a wonderful 2023. But if it doesn’t work out that way, I won’t be disappointed. I promise. And either way: I won’t ask.