The vicious cycle begins. “If you don’t go back to sleep now, tomorrow is going to be horrible! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep, dammit!” My mind tries to force itself to shut down, and in doing so, awakens even more.
I was not optimistic about a 2-hour delay being changed to a closure. I knew that I’d be zombie-walking through a shortened day, often a more-chaotic-than-usual-even-for-middle-school day. I turned the volume up on my ambient noise app and closed my eyes, listening to waves hitting an imaginary shore, drowning out the sleet outside my window.
At 7, my alarm went off, only an hour later than usual because on a delay day, I like to drink my coffee warm and in bed instead of cold in my classroom, and I picked up my phone.
Then, I saw it. The email declaring my school district closed. I looked out the window expecting a worse than expected weather event, but nothing.
My school district’s facebook page is blowing up with angry parent comments, but I’m grateful for a day to recharge, mistake or not.