I’m going to talk about the Coronavirus today.
But before I get started, I’d like to just give a sort of disclaimer on this whole thing. Yes, I am going to talk about my feelings. NO, that does not mean I do not understand that there are people out there truly suffering. I know there are doctors, nurses, and other hospital/doctor office staff who are risking their lives daily. I know there are families who have lost jobs. Who have even lost loved ones. I just want you to know that the following post is NOT because I feel bad for me and don’t understand that I’m lucky. It’s simply because I’m allowed to have feelings. And I haven’t typed, or even spoken, most of my feelings about COVID-19.
Alright. So. It hits me sometimes. Most days, I am okay. Most days, I work hard, I come home and I tend to my little family. If I don’t look around too much, I can almost think things are normal. But then. THEN there are other days. Days where I’m inexplicably sad, unmotivated, overwhelmed, and irritated. Days where my kids will NOT STOP FIGHTING. Days where they’ve used their Kindles for 3 hours already that day and I’m hoping they’ll keep going. Those are the days where I just long for normalcy.
I think over the last few weeks, I’ve struggled with guilt about that. Guilt–because so many parts of my life have remained relatively normal. And yet, I get sad. I have so much to be thankful for. But I get sad.
I get upset thinking about the kids not going back to school. I want to cry when we pick up/drop off school work to Harlyn’s school. I hate that my 2 year old Zooms with his classmates for circle time once a week and does his show and tell in our living room. Am I grateful for distance learning for my kids? ABSOLUTELY. But I mourn all that they are missing.
I hate that my kids haven’t left our home except to drive through the school parking lot once to grab school work and wave to Harlyn’s teachers. I wanted to bawl my eyes out when Maverick asked when we’d take him to his school parking lot to see his teachers. I hate that they miss their lives and there’s nothing I can do about it. It pains me that they take it out on each other with all the fighting, biting, hair pulling and pushing. I’m not saying my children were angels before Covid, but I can assure you they didn’t fight like this.
And then there’s social media. I am almost ready to delete Facebook–it makes me that miserable sometimes. I can’t stand that online and in real life, there’s nothing anyone can talk about except this virus. I believe it’s important to talk about, of course. But I freaking cannot stand that all day every day, it’s all I can hear and all I can read. You can’t escape it.
If you don’t follow me on social media, then you don’t know yet that my mother in law arrived at our house at the end of February. She meant to stay a couple weeks. She’ll leave after she’s been here two months–she just kept offering to stay to help with homeschool. It’s been the biggest blessing…but I’m already nervous about her leaving. And not just because I’ll be on homeschool duty. But because our kids do not tolerate change well at all, and it’s never easy on them when Ma leaves. We’re in for it.
I miss our regular routines. Not that I enjoyed scrambling around every morning to leave the house by 7:15 with kids ready for school, but still. We had finally gotten into a groove–our mornings, our evenings, our running schedules. We’re about to figure out yet another new routine, and then when Harlyn gets “out of school” for summer, we’ll need another. It’s exhausting to even think about, ya’ll.
So, yeah. I probably don’t deserve to feel upset. But right now, today, I’m sad. And friends, it’s okay if you feel that way too.
