We're getting to the point of the year where I'm starting to see memories from the last handful of cool things we did before COVID lockdown started. Carter's basketball season started a year ago last Monday, and while we got a handful of games in, he never got to finish out his season. The day after that first game was our fun family trip to Dave and Busters to use up all the credits I ended up with from my work event there. Not only haven't we been back, but they haven't even been open in ages. In a couple weeks it'll be Carter's birthday, and his party was the last family event for months.
At work, our VP likes to share what day of remote life it is during his weekly updates, and we're well into the 300s now. Knowing that 365 is so close means that we're that close to a full year remote, which was completely unthinkable when we thought we were leaving for only two weeks. I wish I would have known then that we would be out this long, since my temptation to get a more comfortable chair and replace the desk I've had since I was 11 has been getting stronger. We still don't know when we'll go back, and even if we do, it's possible Carter's schedule will keep me home a bit longer anyway. But is it worth it for 6-9 months when I've already made do for 10?
We're also getting to the point where events are getting canceled for the second year in a row, or at the very least, getting canceled again after being cut short last year. While Jacob's modified basketball season appears to be happening, his travel season probably won't and Carter's Upward season isn't happening either. Craig's Knighthawks season just got canceled Wednesday. Getting to those two-time sacrifices is disheartening. For a while it felt better to keep saying, "Well, it's worth the sacrifice for one year if it keeps us safe." But now it may be two, and it feels harder to know that we're going to go even longer without the normalcy we've all been craving for so long. How many more things will we need to sacrifice? Still better than people, obviously, but it's hard.
When China seemed to get things under control with a couple months of strict lockdown, it seemed like we could certainly get this under control with a few months of a less strict lockdown. Whether China lied or not, we'll likely never know. But we do know that even moderate lockdowns caused an uproar here, so clearly China's methods couldn't be duplicated in the U.S. But to be fair, so many countries have tried so many different types of lockdowns, and yet most have only had moderate success at best. At worst, they were simply in the not-as-big-of-a-failure-as-the-U.S camp. Given that lockdowns don't work here and people even fight masks, vaccines were supposed to be our savior. While they were developed in record time, they're still going to take a while to roll out. This isn't going away anytime soon, still. It's disheartening.
With the reality that we still have a long road ahead, so many areas that have had remote school all this time--including local
urban districts and even my niece and nephew's highly rated suburban
district out west--are starting to ponder returning to buildings. To be out of the office is one thing, but to be out of the classroom? It's almost unthinkable, particularly for some kids. On
one hand, so many schools have done well with very little spread all
year long. Jacob's school is fully in-person and has only had one two week remote period to mitigate spread from some sort of out-of-school gathering. I haven't heard of any large-scale outbreaks in our district (or even our general area), either, and I feel like the media would be all over if it there was even a whiff of one. On the other hand, new extra-contagious strains are popping up
all over, and there's no telling how that will change what has been the
status quo. But for kids that have been out of buildings for almost a
year, the mental and educational damage caused by this setup is becoming
clearer. Hybrid has been hard enough for us--I can't even imagine how
bad it is for kids without full support at home. I understand the fears
of the teachers fighting it, but so many people have worked in equally
challenging circumstances for the last year and the consequences here
are so severe for the kids, which is a way bigger deal than adults not being able to go to a store, church, or office. There's no perfect solution, and the new
strains definitely complicate matters. But I just wonder how some of
these kids are going to come back from this.
All this time, my biggest personal frustration is that we've been unable to appreciate all of this family time. So many families are enjoying the slower pace, lack of organized extracurriculars, and extra togetherness. For us, it's been exhausting. From Jacob's constant belittling of his brother to Carter's emerging ADHD and screen addiction, there is very little joy here. I can see where movie nights, game nights, and extra time not spent running ourselves ragged should be a great thing, but for us, it's just more time spent refereeing, yelling, and trying to keep the peace. Craig and I are usually so exhausted by the kids' bedtime that we get very little time for ourselves. There are days that neither of us feel capable of parenting in the way we should, but it's not like we have any options to get a true break. We can't even easily do a weekend away to attempt to recharge. And family trips to make some better memories seem almost impossible.
Of course, as I was looking through my blog last week trying to find some piece of information, I came back across a post I did last January about wishing time away and how the mundane moments at home might actually end up being the ones we remember best. Little did I know back then how prophetic that post would be. The last two paragraphs were especially convicting, but I must say that I was pretty on target with this:
It occurred to me this morning that the desire to wish away time probably indicates some lack of faith that there will be something important or exciting within that time that we'd miss out on. If it seems like most of our days are without any sort of fun or significant action, how much would we actually miss if we skipped some?
If that doesn't describe the bulk of the last year, I don't know what does. Knowing how little it feels like we have to look forward to right now, I can confirm that it does lead to wishing away time more than ever. Can we just get to a time where we can freely see family, travel, and maybe even not wear masks? However, I'm sure, as per my post, that we would miss some very cool moments in that time. And while I can't say the last year was all that exciting, there were certainly good moments in the midst of it all. But I am really missing those significant moments more than ever. Can we even have a birthday party for Carter this year? After that, will we miss another Good Friday and Easter? After that, maybe we can start looking forward to better weather, but will it be another uneventful summer at home, once again devoid of family parties, local festivals, and vacations? Right now it all looks pretty likely. But as my post reminded me, I do need to try to savor these moments anyway--despite the refereeing, despite the disrespectful kids, despite two parents who struggle to connect without kids interrupting or one of us falling asleep. Unexciting as they are right now, we don't get these years back. It frustrates me that we have one less year to travel, one less year to celebrate, and have basically spent an entire year on pause in so many other areas of life. I wish I had the answer to how we find a way to appreciate and enjoy this time, but I don't. It's just not fun right now, and finding the energy to find a positive spin is getting harder.
In the past few weeks I feel like I hit a new level of can't-deal with so many aspects of life. Like, it's so much energy to put one foot in front of the other that I'm not sure how to tackle the harder stuff--neglected cleaning, catching up on Jacob's confirmation requirements, finding a solution for every house thing that's bugging me. I did finally buy a dishwasher after they had been backordered for months, but need to schedule the installation. I still need a kitchen contractor, we want to build a deck for the pool in the spring, and there's all these other little house things that bother me more now that we're here so much. I've been trying to convince myself for months to start going through baby clothes, but the added stress of soaking them or getting them to the consignment shop is too much. I know there's a ton of stuff around here that either needs to be donated or prepped for my mom's spring garage sale, but wrapping my brain around all of that feels like too much at the moment. We're desperately trying to manage Carter's screen time, but between our need for solitude/quiet and the ridiculousness that happens when he's screen-free (be it fights with Jacob or toddler-style tantrums), I can tell neither of us have the energy to manage the fallout of sticking to limits for more than a couple days at a time. Carter's school art projects (at home every two weeks) are the embodiment of our every day struggle--we're lucky to get through his standard school work every day when he's home, let alone add on an art project that's going to take an hour of work plus at least a half hour of convincing to actually do it. So if we don't do it that day, what day? We never have bandwidth on weekdays after a full day of schooling, and weekends are supposed to be a break so he gets offended if we try to catch up then. And most times, I can't blame him--we need a break from all the cajoling, too. So it sits there until we finally find ourselves with the time and patience to do one, hopefully before another one gets added to the pile. It's a never-ending cycle. So it is with most of my to-do list--sitting and waiting until I get enough energy to tackle one or two things. The worst part is that I'm just not sure what it will take to undo this feeling. Months of normalcy? A long vacation? Therapy? I just don't know.
So, I'm doing what I can--trying to tackle one or two things a day in baby steps. My usual M.O. is to try to overcompensate for the things I can't control with things I can, and while that's usually just pushing off the real problem, I feel like here it's probably all I can do until the real problem solves itself. Of course, it seems with most steps forward there's a step back, but here's what I'm tackling:
- I finally found and ordered a new TV stand last weekend after having this awkward double TV setup in our living room for a solid five years (for fear of creating a top-heavy situation if we ditched the old TV). Of course, it arrived a couple days early but when I tried to set up an appointment to donate our old one (needing a pickup because it's HEAVY--we could ditch it in pieces, but it's still in remarkably good shape after 17 years), that's not available until March 8, so I guess we just have to wait on assembling the new one.
- I finally printed up the worksheets for Jacob to do his confirmation assignments that we're now four behind on, but now we need to find the time to do them (a parent has to do it with him).
- I called and made an appointment to get Carter in with the behavioral health folks, as his issues are definitely getting no better right now. I also started the first rounds of the dreaded scales for evaluations, and sent a set to his teacher. It's hard starting that process again and having flashbacks to what we went through with Jacob, but it's so badly needed that I have no problem powering through. I just keep reminding myself that Jacob's turnaround in school was almost instantaneous when he started medication, and while the thought of it pains me a little bit and I know our current situation is so different with hybrid school, it gives me that little bit of hope I need that we could start righting the ship sooner rather than later.
- I posted on Facebook (again) to get some suggestions for kitchen contractors. I got a couple names rather quickly, so now I just need to work up the energy to call them and try to set up appointments. Mind you, I have no idea how we're going to survive without a kitchen for any period of time since our eating out options are so limited, but it's time to press forward.
- I made a list of larger items I want to include in my mom's garage sale, and hopefully once I clear out all of the things we need to donate that are clogging up our office (which I finally just called to confirm drop-off hours for), I can start wrapping my brain around the smaller stuff.
I still have a boatload of other little things to figure out, but it's a start. I know I'm not alone in this struggle, either. I even read an article today about why so many people are struggling more right now. Mental bandwidth is limited these days, especially among working moms and really among anyone who misses family, friends, or any sort of outside life. We're constantly battling the fear and anxiety, without access to many of the techniques we normally use to manage those things. And on a long term basis, the stress exhausts the body and there's no end in sight to propel us forward. I actually struggled for close to a week with this post because it felt a bit complainy, but at the same time I'm trying to document this experience honestly because I hope some day it will be a distant memory and we'll want to remember all of the weird, quirky, challenging things that we went through. But for now, it's hard.
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