Friends, it’s been a year. A year of adjustments, balancing,
finding a new normal and finding a new normal again. It’s been a year of finalizing
my divorce and figuring out how to handle the quiet when my loves aren’t in my
home. It’s been a year of discovering love and trust. And just when we got that
figured out and the Squirrel and I stopped fighting about how terrible divorce
is and we celebrated our first holidays as a family of three together, the
Moose broke his leg. Oh my heavens that was a challenge. The physical pain, the
emotional pain and the mental pain was a journey. My days went from worrying
about being a mom and work to worrying about how I was going to get my 250 pound
baby up the stairs by myself. I didn’t sleep for weeks. But we learned how to
find the good in challenging situations. We did it.
And just when we started physical therapy and life started
to get back to normal again, the pandemic hit. Now that we can actually go and
do things with Moose, we can’t because of tiny little germs that we can’t see
and that I have a difficult time convincing the Squirrel exist. And now we are
in a new normal, one I could never have imagined in a million years. For the
third time in 11 months our lives came to a screeching halt and took an
immediate hard left into unknown territory. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look
at it), I am perpetually lost (please don’t watch me find my car in a parking
lot) and I am comfortable with having no idea where I’m at or how I’m going to
get home. Thank goodness these past few years have taught me that I have no real
control over many of my circumstances and that I can find the lessons and get
back on track if I just stop, look around and pause.
These past three weeks have been full of disappointment.
Spring break was a drag. I’m not presenting at a conference in Florida anymore.
We don’t get to go to soccer games or taekwondo testing or concerts. The family
vacation to Florida that I worked so hard to take the kids on (with Grandma in
tow!) is postponed indefinitely. Postponed indefinitely – oh my gosh how sick
are we of that phrase? Can I just ask what the hell is going on with the toilet paper thing? My birthday and the one year anniversary of our new family
won’t be celebrated at restaurants or at amusement parks. Heck, we don’t even
know if we can go on our annual family vacation to Ohio. Working from home has been challenging as the
boys are stir crazy with no outlets for their energy, social needs or (ahem) “creativity.”
This has been taxing. Just last week after getting tired of
being the referee in the “who hit who first” game between two children who KNOW
HITTING IS NEVER OKAY, I sent the kids to their rooms and told them to settle
the argument themselves and to come downstairs when it was over. It worked in
the Parent Trap when the camp director sent the twins to live in a disgusting
cabin when they were fighting. Apparently movies aren’t real. You guys. Two
hours they yelled at each other. And then they came downstairs and the three of
us argued for another hour. A three hour standoff that ended with me
threatening to use all of my vacation time to babysit them instead of taking us
on an actual vacation…sometime. I don’t even know how it ended. I just know that
in the end we finished the last few episodes Schitt’s Creek that night and I
crawled into bed exhausted.
I was thinking about how I’m going to make adjustments to
week four of quarantine so it is better than week three. Each week I make tweaks
– work earlier before the kids get up so I can take more breaks during the day
to interact with them, plan more organized activities, maybe start reading the emails
from school, stop reading the tweets from school. This week we will have milk
and cookie breaks every day and read Harry Potter. We will take one “play”
break each day – nerf gun fight, ping pong, dance party, walks, family yoga
(okay that one might be a pipe dream of mine.) We will keep working our way
through the Marvel movies – we have watched 12 of them so far. How is that even
possible? I started wondering when would we get back to Normal? May? June? The
Squirrel already had his June camp canceled. Will we have our vacation to Cedar
Point? Will things be Normal by July?
And then I remembered Normal. We don’t get daily ping pong
or nerf gun fights in Normal. We don’t have milk and cookie breaks in the
middle of a work day in Normal. Movies every night in Normal? No way. If we are
lucky, we are all home one night a week in Normal. If it isn’t a sport or music
activity then the Moose is at a party or the Squirrel is running off with
friends. A family dinner during Normal is at 8 p.m. not at 6 p.m.
Maybe this isn’t SO bad. I’m not saying I like this staying
in place thing. I don’t. I miss my gym, I miss my friends, I miss teaching yoga
and seeing my students face-to-face. I’m mad I don’t get to do my plans because
as much as I’ve learned how to adapt these past few years, I’m a planner and a
doer. I am so glad I have a job and I’m trying desperately to find a balance
between work, my babies and my sanity. I’m not there yet - I’m getting closer
each week but it still sucks. My kids are still going to fight and we will all
probably have weekly stand offs with each other. I’m tired of trying to be a
fun yet productive mom and at the same time be 100% present at my job. But you
know what? I’m going to miss this imposed family time too. When we get back to Normal
and are running in three different directions each night, we are going to look back
and remember when we were forced to slow down, hang out as a family because we
weren’t allowed to see anyone else and go for walks because it was the only place
for us to go. Maybe when we get back to Normal, we can try to take a few lessons with us from the Quarantine Months - family walks, helping our neighbors and washing our hands. We may just all come through this a little bit closer, more generous and cleaner (and with a full closet of toilet paper.) And that's not a bad thing.
