A lot

 Yesterday was a lot.

First there was the scandal.  "Teacher, the sub read us the book and there was kissing in it!"

(I loved how they kind of blamed the sub for it.)

I had them share the gossip with me.  The main character's mom, who is a widow, started dating the single dad of another friend.  And they kissed.

It was a lot to process.

The second scandal, no less dire, was that a girl was stung by a wasp the day before, also when the sub was there.

At recess.  The humanity!

At varying times during the day it itched or hurt and I kept saying, "That means it is healing." (I had no medical expertise to back up this claim.)

My classroom was hot.  Riley kept coming to fix it and the AC would run briefly and then stop again.

I am unreasonably sensitive to heat right now.  It is part of lymphoma.  Not my favorite part.  (Do I have a favorite part?)

I was also discombobulated after being gone for 1 1/2 days.  It is hard to get your bearings after that.

All of this would have been enough to keep me on my toes all day, but then something truly terrible happened.

There was a shooting at UVU.  Mark wisely, kindly, texted me that it had happened, but he was already home before I had a chance to hear about it from anyone else.

A right wing commentator was there speaking and a shooter shot and killed him from a building where Mark would have been in class if it had happened on Tuesday.  He walked right by where the shooting happened an hour before it happened.

He had several close friends who were in the lockdown on campus that followed.  All the nearby elementary schools went into a secure lockdown (not the kind where you have to hide, but the kind where you keep everyone inside--no recess or leaving the building.  Full stop.)

I came home and hugged Mark tight.

I showed him the photos on the NYTimes and asked him if they were any of his friends.  It is surreal that it happened there.

It is surreal that we live in a country where it happens all the time and nothing changes.  

It is a lot.