Day 3 After the Bee:

I am curled up in a ball, clutching on to the 3rd Unabridged Dictionary like a lifeline as I surrounded by a cumulative circle of spelling paraphernalia ranging from water bottles to Snoopy to my beloved Banagrams. No, not really, but mentally I may as well be. I call myself a retired speller, slightly jokingly, slightly with a twinge of sadness. I’ve joined the ranks of whom I thought of as “really old people” as a 4th grader starting spelling. I can feel my spelling hairs graying and my bee’s knee’s creaking with each step. But in all seriousness, I’ve started to come to terms with the idea that I was done with spelling. But I’m not completed detached yet. I’ve found some things that start to occupy my time, like that neverending pile of summer homework.

I turn on my computer, my hands smoothly going straight to open Merriam Webster out of force of habit. The simple action requires no thought, it has become an automatic motion as soon as I power on a device. The mere act of closing the window feels like a light sting, reminding me that I don’t need the CD-ROM to be permanently open anymore. (Also totally false. I am guilty of still using it if I want to define a word)

But despite all of this effervescing nostalgia that’s annoyingly ever-present, I am starting to get used to days where I may not even look at spelling materials. However, I still set apart time to just skim over random languages or mess around with search functions. At least I’ve passed the time of obsessively reading through news articles about spelling bees or twitter threads, which can sometimes be surprisingly incendiary.