Innocent Until Proven Guilty

This week is National Teacher Appreciation week. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, until my students started giving me flowers. Lots of flowers. I have five different kinds of flowers lined up on my desk (bouquet, potted, etc). This is a perfect set-up because it means I can hide behind them when I want to be left alone! It also means that I am popping Claritin daily.

But it is truly nice to have such enthusiastic givers :)! Also nice was when our weekly staff meeting today was cancelled. Instead of taking advantage of the situation to get some work done, I skipped out early (SHH! Don't tell!) and did some much needed birthday shopping. I spent most of the time feeling guilty about skipping out on a non-meeting. What's up with that? Am I so driven by guilt that I can't enjoy playing hooky? I kept trying to justify my actions: It's the only day I have the car to shop; I come in over an hour early every day to work--time that I am not paid for; I didn't have that much to do in my classroom....

It reminds me of the times when I was growing up and my parents would urge me to stay home from school and "take it easy" at the slightest cold or headache. The more they would urge, the more I would insist on going to school (and who cares that I was too sick to breathe?). I wonder if they were playing mind games with me and using reverse psychology or if they truly thought I needed to chill? Maybe they just recognized that missing one day of school wasn't going to be the catastrophic end of the world I was imagining it to be.

And maybe leaving an hour early and skipping one non-meeting won't cause a disaster of epic proportions. Maybe just a disaster of moderate proportions. Or small proportions, even.

We'll see.