Way way WAY back a long time ago, Romney had this great kindergarten teacher's aide who was super nice and was named Holly. She still teaches at the same school now, 11 years later. She's great. Except this one little thing....she was kind of involved in the PTA because she had her own kids at the school back then. I did a lot of volunteering in the classroom that year and got to know Holly and guess what. She totally finked on me for volunteering and as the school year was winding up, I got a phone call from someone on the PTA. She said that she had gotten my name from Holly and would I like to be next year's PTA president? (Just pause now to imagine to yourself the expletives that went through my mind at that moment. Just as I am not going to type them, I also did not say them. But I thought them.) I said no thanks, seeing as how I had never even attended a PTA meeting ever before. Then she said, "Well, we also need a volunteer coordinator or a book fair coordinator." Something to note at this point - I'm not very good at saying no. So instead I thought about the two positions and said that I'd be willing to do the book fair job. It seemed like a nice once-a-year job instead of an entire-year job.
Next came the ultimate bait-and-switch. Turns out someone offered to do the book fair thing first and somehow I was then just made the volunteer coordinator. Back to me being not very good at saying no.
It's not really worth recounting the very steep learning curve I experienced that year and probably the next as well. There were a lot of stressful school activities and events that I had to figure out how to do and find helpers for. But also, I started almost immediately feeling like a real part of the team. The women on the PTA were people of all sorts of different backgrounds but they were welcoming and funny and everyone wanted to do more for Wasatch.
I think I was the volunteer coordinator for about 5 years. I also spent time as the Hospitality Coordinator and eventually became the treasurer. There was only one year when I did volunteers and money at the same time and that was the year that I actually did say no, I wasn't going to do that again. I attended meetings and Halloween Carnivals and bake sales and Arts Showcases. I watched as first Chase moved on from elementary, then Romney, and then finally, Emma made it to her 6th grade year.
I could tell that I was kind of aging out, just like my daughter was. My circle of PTA friends had all moved on and the team had refreshed about 3 times since I had started. I loved the current group just as much as I had the first group of women, but I also felt like I was not quite as passionate about the issues as I once had been. I started to hear people have new amazing ideas that actually we had already tried out before. Twice. It was time.
But still, when that last PTA meeting came up, I couldn't stop my eyes from leaking for the whole meeting. I have absolutely loved being a part of the PTA, even though it meant I had to really rely on my dear husband to pick up a lot of slack on those nights of busy school events, when I would be at the school from two hours before to two hours after it ended just doing stuff, and came home so exhausted I had trouble finishing my sentences.
The best was a couple of weeks after our last meeting, we got together in person for the first time in over a year. We met up at a fancy little avenues bistro and ordered delicious things like fried whole avocados and creamy little cakes. We sat and talked for hours and I just enjoyed the camaraderie of being with a group of people who all care about our dear little school. So I guess after all I just need to thank Holly for pitching me in the deep end and getting me involved in something I ended up loving so much.
My last zoom meeting:
No comments:
Post a Comment