As of now, my city is mostly shutdown for the next three weeks.

I’ve emailed my students, and their parents, to let them know their health and safety is my number one priority. Anything else classroom related comes secondary and we’ll figure it out as time goes on.

After all, this is a first time for all of us in this situation.

My heart, prayers and respect goes out to all the front-line healthcare workers and essential services as we hopefully work through this pandemic. It is my sincere hope that when this is done, people will understand how woefully needed our healthcare services are and spend time fighting to fund it adequately.

I also can’t help but think of all the holes we’ve built in the fabric of our society that are being exposed. Perhaps we will recognize it’s time to shift how we do things.

Our current systems that were built for yesterday cannot handle the needs of today. Change was always coming, it was just a matter of when.

In addition to the social distancing, I’m also prepared to digitally distance myself.

I don’t need to know every hour how much worse things are, what people are stockpiling, or what everyone’s thoughts are as they go into panic mode. I’ll check-in once a day with the official channels, then head outside with my family to enjoy the emerging spring air.

I’ll touch base with family and friends, then sit on the floor and play with my kids.

I’ll be writing a lot about this time in history. Whether some of it makes it online will be up for debate, but I want to be able to track where my thoughts were while this was happening.

I’ll be reading my backlog, planning the rest of my teaching year, doing some professional development, learning to keep sane and adjusting to a new rhythm.

I don’t expect it to be perfect, nor would I have that expectation on others.

This is either going to be a great time of self-reflection, refreshment and renewal…

or it might turn into The Shining.

I’ll see you on the other side.