42. I Didn't Know

#64Challenge

Today I sat in a Zoom Writing Meeting with 16 other women from across the country.

A few weeks ago, this would have never crossed our mind, to pull this particular group together.

Now we know it is a necessity. Now we know how much we needed it.

During the variety of writing prompts we were given by our awesome facilitator, Laurie Kemp, I kept touching on pieces of grief.  I kept having tears rise up in my eyes.

I kept tapping it down. I wasn't ready to be in that space, not quite yet.

But I knew it was coming.

After our two hours together, life went on. Around 6:30 I made dinner, listening to an old playlist I made back in 2009 on my iPod. I love revisiting these lists.

I put dinner in the oven, and then it arrived: the song that would make me cry. And it's message was clear. As I listened and cried, grieving what has already been lost, what is yet to be lost, I started thinking over and over...

I didn't know.

I didn't know that every day I walked into my classroom I was walking into a field of gold.

I didn't know until that privilege was removed from my life.

I didn't know.