For some reason, I haven’t really written anything about our daily lives since we’ve gone into quarantine mode. (Which is funny, considering I have repeatedly told the kids that they are living history and shout be writing this all down). It doesn’t happen very often, I know...but for some odd reason I haven't had much to say. This whole thing has rendered me speechless.
But last night, I went on a long car ride with my senior girl who is so, so sad about all of the memories-to-be-made that have been suddenly erased from her last year of high school. After almost a month of homeschool, yesterday it was announced that schools would be closed for the rest of the year. I mostly knew it was coming, but still. All of the “lasts”, senior ball, red & white, time with friends, lacrosse season (that she has been optimistically practicing for every day), senior trips, college visits, and time with friends (worth two mentions because she is that disappointed), and of course, graduation. How does this even happen? Sure, these kids are resilient and they’ll get through life just fine. Better than fine, I believe. But this? It’s hard right now.
My almost 16 year old is nervous she won’t get her license on time. The girl who has always marked time by how many “fun things” she has that day...she misses her friends too. She misses all the fun things. She thrives on people and conversation and her options are a bit limited right now. Going to work for Aunt Kelsey has become a highlight. A fashion show of sorts. When you have a reason to get dressed and do your hair, you GET DRESSED AND DO YOUR HAIR!!! Especially this girl.
My fifth grader. A social butterfly as well. The girl who had finally adjusted to her new elementary school and is worried she’ll never see all of her new found friends who will be going to a different high school next year. Also, the end of fifth grade and the elementary years isn't senior year, but it is a right of passage and to her, it all seems so unfair.
My little guy. He’s loving all the outside time. He is constantly tinkering. We had a bike set up on the trainer in our family room (courtesy of Sam) the other day. He is shooting at things from his bedroom window (don’t ask🤦🏼♀️), planning fishing trips, and watching as many “Finding Bigfoot” & “The Cowboy Way” episodes as his mom will allow. His boyhood is thriving. His schoolwork? Not so much.
Oh, and my oldest? On strict quarantine in one of the biggest cities in the nation. She can longer go to the grocery store and has learned how to freeze and unthaw gallons of milk & cook dried beans (and everyone should know how to freeze and unthaw milk & cook dried beans, I suppose). She’s had a few pretty darn discouraging days this month, but is “pulling up her big girl pants” and moving ahead. Because really, life is all about pulling up our big kid pants and also- that’s what everyone is doing right now. She is happy and well and thankfully still gets one outing a week to the laundromat, hooray! They play country music over the sound system there, so it's an outing plus George Strait (if she is lucky). I passed on her grandma's suggestion that perhaps she should do her laundry at home, in the sink :). That went over about how I thought it would. After all, what would life be without one outing a week?
We are constantly re-working a sort of loose routine. (I’ve never been good at strict-anything). The kids have picked up water coloring, online schooling, and parenting each other on the hourly. I’ve picked up grocery shopping for four households at a time, reading family history, and instructing my kids 1053 times a day that the ONLY PERSON YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT US YOURSELF BECAUSE LUCKY FOR YOU, YOU AREN’T A PARENT YET!!! And...ONE DAY YOU’LL HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHAT ALLLLLLL THE PEOPLE IN YOUR HOUSE ARE DOING BUT LUCKY FOR YOU THAT TIME.IS.NOT.TODAY.
Aaaaaaand….......Deep breath.
Really, we have it pretty darn easy, something that I remind the kids & myself often. We are so lucky to live in the country, where we have plenty of room to run & go on walks and a little house that’s just big enough that we don’t touch each other every time we turn. We are eating dinner together every night. We are more consistent at the things that really matter, but not perfect. (And really, I have no excuses except we are just us and I haven’t found anything we are even close to perfect at, so we’ll just keep striving for a little improvement on our normal mediocre). At a time when so many are experiencing such heartache and financial stress and deep worries, are we healthy and happy and home.
You’d think I’d have lots of time to have everything whipped into shape but I don’t. (Have everything whipped into shape, that is. I have the time, but not the whipping-into shape-ability, apparently). I am enjoying my kids being close (except for all of the self-proclaimed parenting, of course). I like the slower pace, the almost daily walks. I love the art work laying all over the wood stove. The slow dinners. Baking bread and having time to cook dinner every night. But also I am also a little tired of cooking dinner every night.
In all honesty, part of me is scared that everything will go back to the way it was before, and part of me is scared it will never go back to the way it was before.
This time, right now. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. One day, I think we’ll look back and look upon it as a sacred, holy time.
I’ve been thinking and even talking to my older kids how, when you’re right in the midst of the biggest, best growing seasons, it doesn’t feel sacred at all. It’s hard and it sometimes hurts. Growing involves two steps forward and one step back. It can feel like we are not going anywhere at all.
Life. I am learning that in all experiences, there are these little glimmers of light. The very things that make it so hard - the interruptions to life-as-we-knew-it...those un-asked for spaces. They are what lets the light in.
This is a time to be happy.
We have trained ourselves to fill the empty spaces. If there is a hole in the day, we fill it. A gap in the schedule? We find something to shove in the cracks. But this. This is a time to learn. This pandemic is teaching us how to find beauty in the unplanned and the unwanted. The cracks and the crevices that we never even asked for.
Now is a time to find the happy. It’s time to let the light in.
