We all have days we look forward to. Whether it’s as simple as the upcoming weekend. As trivial as eating hot wings on Superbowl Sunday. Possibly as sentimental as our best friend’s wedding. Days are marked on our calendars that hold various levels of pertinence in our hearts. I relate to this thought as a forever planner. Always having some thing that we can’t do now but we will for sure do in the future, if only we can find the time. Every few months there is a new plan I have for a few months past where I am right now that, you guessed it, will be overshadowed by the latest hottest adventure to not get brought into fruition. That’s not sappy, it’s a symptom of the times. In a world overflowing with new podcasts, TV shows, current news horrors, and documentaries of tragedies of old news stories;
what are we supposed to focus on?
That question flips through my head like an ESPN ticker, day and night. I’m reviewing this four minutes before posting wondering if this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. As the last few months have unfolded pairing down your existence is as sample as a global pandemic. If the world is looking at an existential moral crisis the process of looking at what is most important becomes almost binary. Is this decision the safest for my family and friends? No? I guess we aren’t going to Chili’s for awhile.
Some people closest to me didn’t have this struggle before the pandemic. They didn’t need the world to stop to know what to put their energy into. Some people closest to me had their one focus taken away from them. Some people closest to me work in careers that for the majority of the time, the work they put in is largely not about them. They work all year long for one day. A day that from the outside looks like an extension of the rest of the job. A day that celebrates students, faculty, and community. That day, for that person, is a day of extreme stress followed by that ecstasy of your head hitting the cold pillow that night. Everyone can relate to a culmination. Working so hard for everyone else it becomes almost selfishly self fulfilling.
That person closest to me is my mom. She’s not ashamed of her age so I’ll throw it out there. My mom is 47 years old. Her First Saturday in June has been spent dancing, yelling, organizing, managing, crying, sweating, and celebrating for the last 43 years. Today is the first time she hasn’t been backstage at a high school getting ready for a dance recital since she was 3 years old. On the First Saturday in June my thoughts will be focused on a woman who will be experiencing a First Saturday in June in a way for the first time in her life. Maybe this isn’t the typical ending to a season. Maybe we are sitting on the start of something new to look ahead at.
Love you mom.
Gratitude 
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