lunch break: ...today

...you are woken up by a text at 5:45 a.m. asking if school's delayed. Sometimes it's nice to be the school's messenger. Sometimes it's not. You immediately start. "Please let it be clear," runs through your mind.

You drive four children to school in precarious weather. "Let it be clear," you think.

You catch your breath in the copy room. You haven't thought about it for at least an hour, caught up in your daily grind. "Let it be clear," you think.

You worry when school is dismissed early because the last two times, you've been at school when you got the news. "Let it be clear," you think.

You drive home, saying, "Let it be clear," under your breath every few minutes. Superstitious that if you don't say it enough, it won't be clear. You know the reality. You know you could say, "Let it be clear," 8,000 times and that it's not in your hands. You know you could pray to God, Allah, Buddha, but it's not in their hands either. It's on a sheet of paper in a file folder in a doctor's office.

You snuggle with a sleepy girl on the couch for an hour with your phone sitting an inch away. You grow hotter with each minute that goes by the 1:40 p.m. appointment time. "Let it be clear," you say again.

...and then it's clear.