By the time this posts, our winter break will be over and we’ll all be back to work, school, daycare, etc.
I know as I walk the halls of school, the majority of conversations I’ll have will begin with the question, “How was your break?”
People will respond “Too short!” “Great, how was yours?” “Too much food!”
I’ll probably respond with one of those, as well, because as you pass in the hallway, surrounded by middle school students, it’s difficult to really convey the events of a winter break.
Five seconds, in passing, is too short to say “My 8 year old made his way through all of the Harry Potter movies, for the first time, and through the original 3 Star Wars films, so I consider that a win.”
Too short to say, “The kids and I saw Annie, which we loved, even though I wasn’t a fan of the new songs or the changes to the old ones, Night at the Museum, which made me cry, and Monkey Girl and I saw Into the Woods, which was fantastic, made the audience applause, like we were at Broadway. We laughed, we cried, and we loved it. Oh, and we saw the preview for Pitch Perfect 2 which made me way too excited for summer to get here.”
How do you wrap up “Christmas was wonderful with the entire family (25+ people) here for the day, New Year’s was so much fun, spending the night with close friends who make us laugh, and my birthday was relaxing and fun and the kids kept the fighting to a minimum,” in a head nod at a colleague.
When someone asks “How was your break?” I’m not sure they want to hear, “Too long for two of my monkeys who thrive on routine and busy-ness and need to get back to school/daycare, and too short for the other two who love downtime, and time spent with family.”
Is there time for, “Well, we lost power, and then the generator oil tank kinda lost it’s mind and shut down the generator twenty minutes before a houseful of guests was due to arrive on Christmas, and we had to, unexpectedly, also buy a new hot water heater before the New Year?”
It may sound to cheesy to say “I watched Real Man play in the high school alumni hockey game, and do a great job, and it made me feel like I was back in high school when he was my boyfriend and I was so proud of him out on that ice.”
So, I’ll probably just go with “Good, thanks…yours?” and leave it at that.
But, I’ll know in my head that there were ups and downs, and that when they say the same, that they, too, probably have a whole lotta story that they are also paring down to a few words.
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