Endings are hard. Us humans are not really designed to cope with endings. We think too much. The Long Suffering Husband used to have a motto: change is bad. Like Marvin the Paranoid Android he would walk around the house muttering this to himself and the rest of us would smile indulgently. I’ve noticed that since retirement he has completely reversed this philosophy and has become a thrill seeker, changing our walking route home from town without the slightest pre-planning.
Endings in schools can be emotional affairs. The anticipatory grief of people leaving hangs in the air, while the pressure to get everything done is ever present. The end of every school year feels a little as though you know that you are dying. You have a need to get your affairs in order, clean your classroom, complete all the paperwork, shred enough paper to build nests for a million squirrels. If you are a music teacher then everything must be celebrated in song. You meet other music teachers who say, “It’s terrible. Worse than Christmas.”
Every performance triggers the stress response. Adrenaline and cortisol levels rising with each one, never quite having time to get back to normal.
While it is all happening, I’m fine. And before you ask, that is perfectly fine. Really. I’m annoying: Hyper, loud, running around like a squirrel on acid but I’ve got this. I can do anything. Ask me! Honestly, I’ve got time for absolutely anything else you’d like to throw at me. I’m walking 8 miles a day, swimming 100 lengths. Sleep? Oh who needs more than a couple of hours a night? But I’m also perfectly calm, yogic breathing keeps me looking serene.
The dog, however, suffers from 2nd hand anxiety. He gets twitchy, growls at ghosts and is on the lookout for squirrels falling from trees.
This has happened. Once, when he was a puppy, on the path to Morrisons a squirrel did fall from a tree and land at his feet, so maybe I can forgive him his attitude on that path at the moment. He can sense a hyper-squirrel nearby (even though it’s me) and he’s waiting for the weird thing to happen.
Yesterday morning, as he was scuttling sideways and growling at a leaf, a woman appeared. She was coughing.
“Elp,” she wheezed, “I’m choking on a cockle.”
She had tears in her eyes and her face was turning the colour of a Victoria plum. The dog growled at her, while I slapped her back. Between us, we helped and she didn’t die but instead waved a fishy pot under my nose.
“Cockles!” she told me, “I grabbed a pot from Morrisons for me protein.”
She didn’t wait for a response but bounced off like Tigger in leggings.
The dog looked at me. ‘That was weird,’ he said with his eyes. ‘I told you a squirrel could fall from a tree.’
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