Three Years

Three years ago today was the last normal day.  Ever, apparently.  

Well, I suppose it wasn't entirely normal.  The whole week leading up to that Friday the 13th had been full of hints that our old normal was about to be shot to smithereens, but up until Friday we were all still at work and school and it seemed like maybe we'd go through a period of difficulty and then get back to normal soon enough.  But after Friday (or maybe my hellish Wegmans trip Thursday night), I think we started to realize that maybe this was going to be more complicated than we thought.  And even then, I think a few months seemed like a lot, almost unthinkable.  Ha.  And now here we are three years later living as much of our new normal as we can.  It seems pretty safe to say that old normal is never coming back.

I've said before that I'm thankful we didn't know then what we know now.  I'm not sure I would have mentally made it through that.  The one-day-at-a-time mentality was nearly all we could do to get through the hardest parts.  Looking at over 1,000 days--and likely, the entire rest of our lives in some way--it would have been even more overwhelming and impossible to fathom.  Some days it's still hard to believe all that we've come through.

A co-worker and I were discussing last week how the pandemic is so mind-bending.  In some ways we feel like life paused, despite lots of proof that it continued to move on.  She said still feels like she's still that fresh out of college kid in many ways, despite years and a job change to prove otherwise.  I can't believe that Carter was in first grade and is now in fourth.  Somehow that's weirder to me than that Jacob was in sixth and would be a freshman this year had he not reclassified--but maybe that's only the case because he's not a freshman.  Then again, the other day his old school accidentally sent us a notification of a re-enrollment fee to be charged to our account (Seriously? After a year?), and seeing 10th grade next to Jacob's name made me do a double-take.  But maybe that's because I had to work so hard to be okay with him being in 8th again, and with so much talk about 9th next year (primarily because of how it relates to basketball), 10th still seems so far away--even if that's in line with most of the classes he'll be taking next year.  Before all this started, Jacob was half a head shorter than me, and now he towers over me by about 10 inches.  Carter went from just a tiny little guy to my big kid ride buddy.  Craig was in his first season of the new Knighthawks, and now he's been there almost four years.  I was firmly in my early 40s with nearly five years under my belt at work, and I'm constantly caught off-guard when I realize how both of those things have progressed....all because it felt like parts of life were standing still for so long.  Some things don't possibly feel that long ago, and other things feel like a lifetime ago.  But then again, I guess it almost was another life--one that was carefree in a way we didn't even realize, without dramatic changes and constant looming stress.  Either way, three years of upheaval sounds pretty significant, and I'm struggling to process it.

I guess one could argue that the most impactful time of the pandemic was really those first three months, and we've progressively moved back toward normal since, albeit with random spikes here and there.  But those first three months were awful.  Kids home from school, no family gatherings, no activities, sparse grocery stores, lots of fear and stress.  Then the George Floyd stuff happened and that just added another layer of surrealism, and the following six months were focused on the presidential race and Trump's much-debated handling of the pandemic response.  Summer eased some things up a bit, but going back to a still-abnormal school year and continuing to work from home prolonged the trauma a bit.  That first Christmas was a tough one, especially because of the first positive test to hit our house, and that was followed by another tough period of jammed hospitals and lots of stress.  Once the vaccines hit, things seemed to get better for a while, but then a new variant arrived, cases spiked, and a lot of things were back in question again.  At least Carter went back to school four days a week that spring and we made progress on his ADHD by summer, but we had another summer free-for-all around our house, and I spent most of that time wanting nothing more than to get them away from screens and back to normal school.  I've lost track of all the stops and starts I had with going back to the office by that point.  We had at least a couple target dates come and go, but it took an entire additional year beyond what was expected to get into any sort of groove on the in-office front, and we already know the hybrid schedule is in place for another 15 months.  That's a good thing, per my last post, but I've always wondered in the back of my mind if knowing what started this work-from-home thing will always bring with it a little subconscious distress.

I think by last spring, once Craig and Jacob had both had COVID and earned some immunity (and I didn't catch it and found out via blood testing I had immunity too), that was when a lot of things started feeling more normal.  We started wearing masks less.  We had more normal sports and school events.  We were less hesitant to travel.  But more than two years of illness and fears and masks and vaccine questions and a frustrating news cycle and just enough oddness had taken its toll.  And even with a lot of things feeling more normal for nearly a whole additional year now, there is still a lot of trauma there.  There are still things I think twice about, things I miss or wish could be different, things that we didn't do when we thought we would, and on top of it all, there's still that underlying concern about when COVID might strike next and ruin our plans.

Speaking of which...Jacob woke up the day after his last game feeling tired.  It had been a late night with a lot of adrenaline, and he had some nagging homework to finish so he was angling for a day off.  But knowing how much school he'll be missing starting in a few weeks, we were hesitant to allow that.  But when he was still feeling cruddy and sounded pretty congested the next day, we kept him home.  He tried to go to school on Friday but due to a series of events while getting ready, he stayed home again.  Saturday he woke up still feeling off, but he was supposed to have basketball practice so we figured we really should test because he'd feel terrible if he got his teammates sick and it would provide a legit excuse to miss it, which I think he sort of needed because of how he was feeling.  It was a bit of a weird test to read while it was processing, but sure enough, through the little tube it became clearer--two lines.  Well, crap.  Here we go again, round 3 for Jacob.  On the bright side, Jacob was technically already on day 3 of quarantine when we found out, which meant less time squirreled away in the basement.  Good thing, since he's been hating it a lot this time.  I hate COVID weeks too, because it means masking up to deliver meals to the basement and feeling bad that I don't want to hang out with the sick one.  There's a lot of guilt and awkwardness and a missing piece around the house.  Jacob thought his congestion was getting better a couple days in, but then the fever hit Saturday so he's been a bit of a lump.  It doesn't look good to go back to school tomorrow on his first eligible day back, and we'll likely have to figure out if he needs to get checked for heart issues before he goes back to basketball.  One small consolation is that he likely won't have to worry as much about getting COVID again during his upcoming season and all this travel, but it still stinks.  Craig was feeling pretty terrible leading up to his roadtrip this weekend as well, but his tests before and after his trip were negative, so hopefully he's okay.  So far so good for Carter and me, too, interestingly, but I'm working from home for at least a couple days and taking Zicam with every hint of a headache or extra congestion.  At least it happened at a time where we have a little lull, but it's definitely something we didn't need.

Anyway, getting back to the lingering trauma, just the other day I was having a bit of a zombie moment in my car on the way home from work. I felt really tired and in a fog, like I never snapped out of my work focus.  I know I had days like that pre-pandemic because of the depth of the data I work with, but I feel like that's happened more recently where work just sucks the life out of me.  Going into the office wasn't so bad for a while--it was good to see people and get a change of scenery.  But over the past few months, it's gotten harder.  People aren't exactly diligent about their in-person days, so some days it feels pointless to be there.  It's an earlier morning for me and an extra lunch to pack, and I always feel like I'm leaving chores at home that I'd love to knock out when I need a screen break.  The people-ing isn't as exhilarating/exhausting as it once was, but a typical work day still causes me a bit more fatigue than I'd like, and being in the office usually makes that worse.  It's not like I worked less over the pandemic, so all I can figure is that all of the extra stress outside of work has just left my brain's tolerance lower.  Days where I'm immersed in my work for hours, like that day in the car, are more exhausting than they used to be.  Home days are usually easier because I can break the tension with some background TV and get a couple home things done in between tasks, but even some of those days have left me in that post-work fog.  I really think that all of the traumas--big and small--that the pandemic brought are taking longer than expected to heal.  We were warned that being "on guard" for so long wasn't healthy, and I guess this is the result.  I've mentioned before that "extra" things like event planning or birthday gift buying have felt harder, and I'm even struggling more with weekly meal planning, which I'd been doing pretty dutifully since our grocery trips were limited to once a week.  I think the expected healing collided a bit with "hitting the wall" of certain routines, and where it feels like things should be better, they're just sort of stuck.  Functionally I'm fine enough, just more tired--mentally and physically--but it means I'm pushing through more than I'd like.  I think half the battle is finding the balance between self-care and pushing yourself to reasonable levels, giving yourself a little grace while still keeping up productivity and not giving in to the urge to just cocoon like we did so much in those early days.  Having things to do and look forward to helps, but like I said before, all of the "extras" bring along some additional burdens, so it takes a little more work to actually get to the good stuff.

The good news is that the kids don't seem to have the same kind of lingering trauma (that we can tell, anyway), and we still managed to cram in some good stuff.  Jacob actually enjoyed most of the pandemic because he liked remote school and appreciated having extra time at home in the summer.  Carter had a harder time, obviously, but aside from struggles with school and Jacob (which might have happened anyway), I don't think it was a particularly awful time for him, either.  He got a taste of summers at home, had lots of screen time (which he loves, even if it's not good for him), and only had to see his least-favorite teacher ever in-person a couple days a week.  Not to mention that it probably got us an ADHD diagnosis sooner and provided Carter and me the opportunity to do some adventures we might not have done otherwise.  So, not all bad.  I look at all the pictures I've taken over these three years, and while there might have been more without the pandemic, what we crammed in despite all the limitations was actually pretty impressive.  Here are some of the good things, as recalled through my photos:

• My ventures into baking of cookies and bagels, and my flower planting--oh, the zinnias!
• Experiencing a quiet Christmas at home (I liked it better when we didn't have to miss anything)
• Lots of basketball and a variety of short-ish trips (one of which led to the discovery of our beloved FLX Fry Bird!)
• Family adventures to Mt. Hope Cemetery, Warner Castle, Watkins Glen, Niagara Falls, Powers Farm Market, a Blue Jays game in Buffalo, Chimney Bluffs, the Jersey Shore, New York State Fair, Cleveland (minus Craig), and best of all Disney
• Carter's and my many adventures to tons of playgrounds and parks, multiple lakeshore areas, Darien Lake, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, Pittsburgh/Kennywood, and the Buffalo Zoo lanterns 
• My solo escapes to the Corning Museum of Glass, the Van Gogh exhibit, Taughannock and Treman state parks, Animal Adventure Park for Jungle Bells, and visits with my godson 

Some of these cool things probably would never have happened without the pandemic, so I guess I can find positives in getting out of our old habits and doing something different for a bit.  I often wonder what state of burnout we'd be in currently if things had continued as they were.  I mean, as hard as the pandemic was and is, there was a period where I realized how oddly refreshing it was to change things up a bit, and also have the expectation that things would continue to evolve for a while.  Unless things are going perfectly, monotony can sometimes be such a burden over time--getting up early, packing the lunches, making the same commute, slogging through work, coming up with dinner, getting everyone in bed...rinse and repeat.  But suddenly we had a break in it.  It didn't come without its pitfalls, but it was different.  The endless slog you pictured suddenly didn't look the same, and in fact was blurrier than ever.  And for a while, it felt like a little bit of a relief...in the most twisted way possible.

But at the end of the day, despite everything, Jacob still got to play a lot of basketball, Carter got some much-needed help that has served him so well, I get to work from home half the time and have a lot more flexibility, and Craig got a much-needed break from his crazy work life for a bit, which probably prolonged his career (although having 20+ games canceled makes hitting his 400th straight game an even longer, harder task to accomplish, especially with COVID still floating around).  I can't say this is the path I would have chosen for us, but three years later at least I can say we're making some decent lemonade out of the lemons we were handed.  There are still some things I will never forgive this pandemic for--loss of a family member and friends struggling with chronic illness among them--but it could be much worse.  I'm still not sure where three years have gone, but I'm thankful we're here to tell the tale--and it's not half bad!