Looking Back and Anticipating Ahead

Last week as I was working on my previous post, I did a search within my blog and discovered that some older posts were missing their photos.  The outline of them was there, as were the captions, and they were still visible in the posts' draft version, but the live posts did not show the photos themselves.  I panicked a bit, but found that it was a known issue due to some recent Blogger changes.  I tried one of the recommended fixes and it seemed to work, but that fix is only possible for the next month until the old Blogger editor goes away.  So, I decided I needed to page through my entire blog, all 1,800+ posts, to find any other problems while I could still easily fix them.  I first started from the point where I found the problem (a handful of posts in the summer of 2011) and went all the way back to the beginning, and then went back to 2011 and moved forward.  Fortunately, the remaining problems were minimal, and while I mostly just tried to click through quickly, I definitely got sucked into some reading and remembering here and there.

It was actually pretty emotional for a lot of reasons.  Seeing pictures of Jacob as a baby tends to be a bit bittersweet now.  On one hand I can't believe how grown up he is.  On the other, I think back to those early days and how much I enjoyed motherhood.  Despite many stresses along the way, Jacob was a pretty fun baby and brought us so much joy.  Things started to change between 18 months and his second birthday, maybe because we changed daycares and moved, or maybe because it was just that time to move into the terrible twos.  Either way, things got harder from there.  We still had good times and pleasant memories, but more of them were tinged with stress and frustration over a boy who definitely had a mind of his own.  I read a number of posts around the time of our trip to Atlanta, when I was still relatively early in my pregnancy with Carter.  That trip was amazing, but we definitely had our struggles with a four-year-old who was off his schedule.  I also read a lot of posts from shortly after Jacob's fifth birthday, when the behavior issues really ramped up.  It was heartbreaking to read it all back--partly because it was so hard to live through at the time, and partly because it was hard to look at all Jacob went through knowing now that he was starting to deal with the pain of his Celiac Disease and was managing lots of other stress, and we didn't really understand any of it at the time to be able to help him.  Not that we didn't try even before we took formal steps to figure it out, but I felt terrible reading through it all again knowing we just didn't do enough.  We had a couple really tough autumns--that year and the year after especially--and reading through the many things we dealt with, I hardly know how we made it through.  Only by the grace of God, I suppose.  That second fall and winter brought on a constant barrage.  My dad's heart surgery, Craig's shingles, a steady stream of viruses, Craig's uncle's sudden passing, more illness, losing my job, and even more sickness.  There was repeated pinkeye (me), multiple stomach bugs (all except Craig), rashes (both kids), and eternal colds (Craig and me).  One thing right after another, to the point it was fortunate I lost my job because I didn't have to worry about sick days for a while.  It was shocking reading each subsequent post as things got worse and more unbelievable.  Slowly the dark cloud cleared once my new job started, and I was able to enjoy cute pictures of baby Carter and some adorable videos of his toddler antics.  Those are getting bittersweet as well, since we're dealing with challenging behavior and a screen addiction right now with him.  School starts in two weeks so I'm torn between trying to start easing him out of that now vs. just ripping the band-aid off then and revamping our entire schedule at once.  More on why that's such a challenge in a bit.

But I guess I was caught off-guard by the range of emotions I felt while clicking through and remembering the roller coaster we've been on since this whole parenthood thing began.  I wish that it was a constant stream of happy memories, but there were definitely a lot of tougher ones than I would have liked.  It's easy to second-guess yourself all these years later, but reading back, I know we did what we could at the time.  We made the best decisions we could based on the information available to us, and some worked out better than others.  I should be thankful and relieved that we've made it through all we have, but sadly I'm not really getting that peace out of it.  Maybe it's just because my current mindset isn't really in a great place either.

Lately there has just been this weight hanging over everything.  It's hard to describe.  It's not like I'm hard-core stressing over any one thing.  In fact, I'm doing everything I can with my anxious self to not stress over the things I can't control--like COVID, school, or politics.  Sometimes I feel even more numb than I should--like maybe I should be worrying a bit more so I take proper action, but the urgency isn't quite there, maybe just because of mental fatigue?  But despite not focusing in on any specific stressor, I just feel tired and weighed down.  All this despite getting more sleep for the past five months than I have in years, not having the added stress or time of commutes or strict schedules, and not really having any of the serious worries that others have, like unemployment or facing down the childcare/homeschooling dilemma most people are either already dealing with or will in two weeks.  Not only do I have a job, but it's one I can do from home.  It's also a super understanding one that knows that homeschooling and general interruptions are complications that we just have to deal with and make the best of right now.  I don't have to worry about unexpected child care costs or relying on day care to help my kids with their school work.  Heck, I even have one kid in school all five days, so the sibling rivalry will be one less mess than I had to deal with in the spring.  So many people are facing a ton of unknowns and I'm not...so why do I feel so mentally (and often physically) fatigued?

I've decided that to some degree it must be similar to how microaggressions over time can wear people down.  So even though I'm rested and free of many of my prior daily stresses, the constant lower-level assault of political division, COVID worries, school concerns, sibling rivalry, and screen time overload feels equally exhausting as my previous daily exhaustion used to be.  Part of it is probably that I don't have a "normal" workday, so every day is a bit like Groundhog Day and I don't have the same kind of all-encompassing mental "break" by immersing myself in work for eight hours in a different setting.  I'm dealing with kid stuff all day on top of work, without a change of scenery or even 20 minutes of me time in the car, and I think that's starting to wear on me.  Additionally, without many special events to look forward to, there's so much less to overshadow the bad or the mundane.  Normally we'd have trips and sports and parties to break up the weeks and give us something else to think about on a daily basis.  Instead, we have weeks on end of similar days and very few highlights.  I've done my best to find as many little joys as I can--in my flowers or in little pockets of "me time"--but let's face it, they're not quite the same as travel or quality time with people you care about.  Speaking of which, more little moments:

Amazing donuts - including my Ho-Ho donut with a bite out of it!

The next phase of my favorite zinnia

A new color zinnia!

A new color morning glory!

The best view from my Sunday bike ride to my office, where the Genesee River and Erie Canal meet

Same spot, looking to the left - near the end of a pleasant 10 mile ride!

The evolution of my orange zinnia - could it be more perfect?

The sunset on my way to Wegmans was super red.  The reflection doesn't do it justice.

If you look at the top reflection in the rear view mirror, you can get an idea of how red the sun was.

Twins!

A bunch of zinnias and two morning glories on a lovely morning...so much color!

There's just so much about the months ahead that we don't know about.  The election, virus, school, and work are all giant unknowns.  In the meantime we're still dealing with a steady stream of exhausting political division, still-intense racial tensions (following another unfortunate police brutality incident against a black man, which then led to the murders of two protesters by a 17-year-old gun-toting militia wannabe--all in the city we visited for my cousin's funeral a few years ago), tragedy elsewhere in the country due to a historical hurricane, and a virus that still has the potential to derail many more months of events that, per my point above, could have made all these troubles more tolerable.  There's just so much, and even though I'm not dealing with the worst of any of it, it's enough to cast a dark shadow over daily life.  Add in the kid stuff we manage every day, and there just isn't the mental energy to do it all right--hence the screen time battle we just can't seem to fight right now.

I realized last night that once fall hits in less than four weeks, all four seasons will have been touched by this virus.  We started right at the tail end of winter, although the wintry weather stuck around well beyond its season.  We made it through spring  and the end of school hoping summer would be better.  I guess in many ways it was, but this summer was definitely tainted by our many limitations.  And soon it will be fall.  We may watch pumpkin patches, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas fall victim, and before we know it, we'll have made it through an entire subpar year. 

Earlier today I got to hang out with my co-workers for the first time in 5-1/2 months.  I never would have believed we'd be apart for this long, and it saddened us to think that we might be facing down another six months or more of separation.  Zoom meetings help, but they're just not the same.  It was so great to see them in person, drink some wine, and share stories.  It felt so good to have some normalcy for just a few hours.  I know going back in the office before there's a vaccine will always be a concern (and much like school, won't be nearly as effective as pre-COVID life), but I miss people so much. 

There are so many unknowns, from the practical stuff right down to the mental toll that all of this is taking.  Dealing with so many different stresses at one time, under extraordinary circumstances, is harder than I expected.  I keep hoping that something will change to make things better, but that doesn't appear to be happening any time soon.  So, as I've been saying all along, one day at a time...