Smells like teen spirit. And body odor.

I haven’t been faithful to you. The summer romance we had, updating two to three times a week, those days have long past.

You’ve been replaced by kids. Tadpoles. Whippersnappers. Fourteen-year old boys who don’t shower or wear deoderant. Daughters with clumped mascara and insecure hearts. Cheerleaders, band geeks, track stars. Acne-ridden adolescents with angry appearances (that struggle with alliteration).

You’ve been benched in lieu of staff development and SMART Board lesson plans. The soft clicking of late night typing, no fear of early waking, has been replaced by overstuffed tote bags of poorly-written 9th grade narratives and the looming drone of a cell phone alarm clock.

But this week is spirit week.

Spirit days are consecrated. With each comes glitter, blue jeans, and the chance to pull out all of my inner student council nerdfare. I’m not sure when my love for these sanity breaks bloomed, but there have been many, and I have loved them all.

Many of the pictures from my high school days are buried in some deep abyss. After brief consideration, this is probably for the best. My days of dressing like a lunatic for school ended nearly a decade ago (Seriously?? For the good love.) But then I became a high school teacher, and the spirit day floodgates opened once more. Here’s a small sample of years gone by.

…which brings us to the current Spirit Week. A Disney-themed spirit week. Much to my husband’s dismay, I am a Disney child forever. As I’m starting to feel weird with so many photos of myself littering one post, I’ll restrain my desire to post a gazillion from this week — but it was by far my favorite. Hence the need for my resurfacing.

At any rate, in case you were worried that I was six feet under a stack of paperwork, considering trichotillomania as a form of stress relief, or consistently waking an hour and fifteen minutes before my alarm and staring at the ceiling, reviewing All That Must Be Done — I am. But I’m also dressing like a complete crackpot and enjoying it.