Dark and light exist simultaneously. Through the darkness, you will find the light.

Before this global pandemic, like many families, we were busy all the time.  Our schedules seemed to have schedules, and at times, I felt like we were all just “ships passing in the night.”  Our small family of three had become reduced to apps that “pinged” every time a schedule changed, or a new schedule proposed to pull us in several different directions.  It was the norm and despite the busyness of it all, I tried to remind myself that one day when our son was grown, I would look back and miss these times of chaos and the very act of being busy.  And the truth is that is SO true.  I WILL miss these times, yet a better balance must exist. 

I would have moments of “not so nice mommy breakdowns” when everything would drive me crazy: ever dirty dish, the laundry piling up, having to plan “another” dinner, and all the while being just terrified that life was slipping through my fingers, as I watched our son growing up before my eyes.  Where did the time go?  Am I doing a good job?  Because there were times when I felt like I was failing at literally EVERYTHING at any given moment.  Now, I realize that comes across as a tad dramatic, but I venture to guess we have ALL been there a time or two.  Am I right?  I suppose that is “normal” in the world where most of us are trying to juggle the ART of being a mom, a wife, working, and trying to feel even remotely successful at any or all of it.  Deep down, I just wanted time to ssslllllooooowwwww ddddoooowwwwwnnnnn!  In fact, many conversations with my husband would begin with something like, “I really wish there was a universal PAUSE BUTTON that we could just press and jump off the hamster wheel.” I wanted to pause the busy.  Pause the schedules. Pause the pinging, and the emails, and the pressure.  Pause it ALL and let our little family just LIVE.  Just BE, in any way that we wanted – just for a while.  I wanted to play board games.  I wanted to have meaningful conversations.  I wanted to laugh and LET GO without worrying that I did not have “time.”  I just wanted to make time to enjoy the beautiful beings I hold most dear without all the pull from the “outside.”  Without the layers of pleasantries committing to doing things I did not really want to do because I felt I had to.  Without the damn MOMMY GUILT, (what is that all about anyway?).  That pause button was something I coveted and asked for aloud and in silent pleas ALL.THE.TIME.  Little did I know that the pause button would come.  And it would come in the form of a friggin’ global pandemic named after a beer that frankly, we really enjoy.  Corona would forever not just be that cold beer to ring in the end of a day or be enjoyed while our toes kissed the sand on a lovely vacation.  It would now forever also be reminiscent of the virus that would prove to turn the world upside down.  Whether we were ready for it or not.  Be careful what you wish for…

It was ironically the week between transitioning to a new job when the pandemic starting to really hit home. I was still blissfully unaware, as many I am sure, that it would end up being what it has become.  I was truly enjoying my self-inflicted pause that I had chosen to take before starting my new job and returning to work full-time.  I was excited for the new job and the adventures it would bring, yet feeling guilty in preparation for returning to a full-time work schedule.  I was worried that I was letting our son down by not being as available and frankly, I had grown to enjoy the extra hours handed to me by a part-time schedule so that I could balance life AND find time to reconnect with “me” again. So, to take full advantage of my “pause week” I painted and redecorated two rooms, did the (beginnings of) the Tidy Steps and “KonMari’d” the hell outta my clothes and shoes.  I felt a bit like a rock star!  I dusted off my Nothing To It! Culinary Center Techniques Course recipes and cooked dinners.  I managed to carpool to AND from school for the entire week, which was literally the first time doing that in I have no idea how long.  I felt complete again.  I felt like I was doing things “right” during my pause week; I managed to keep all those balls in the air and felt free while doing it.  The night before starting my new job, we were notified that we might have to work from home due to the rapid onset of the Coronavirus in our area.  Hmm. What is happening?

Day one in the office.  Literally, the saying “one and done”, applied to me here.  I literally had ONE day in the office and on day two, we were working from home.  (A little back story here: to balance the return to FT work, I had asked for the option to WFH periodically and was told that may be an option in the future. Are you picking up on the irony here?) And we’re back.  So, just like that we, along with so many others were thrust into this new world of working from home.  Meanwhile, the schools had to go virtual too.  It was as if I had a genie in my pocket or something. (Now, don’t misunderstand, I am in NO way pleased that my hypothetical genie granted us this “pause” by way of a pandemic-I am simply giving room for the ironies and embracing the gift of time.)   My son and I setup our “work stations” at the dining room table, which felt like a method to “center” us from the beginning. We got to take breaks together, take turns dealing with our energetic dog who was over-the-moon that we were home all day, and learn how to navigate the fear and emotion that we were both experiencing.  There were some hard days that first week, especially for our son.  I cannot imagine being 13 and not seeing his friends, instantly not being at school, having all the activities he loved cancelled for the unforeseeable future-all the things that are the center of his universe.  There were some tears.  There was some anger.  There were struggles with Google docs and refreshing and subsequent missed assignments.  There was one REALLY long day making up missed work due to the Google docs refreshing snafu.  There were learning curves, yet the constant was that we were together.

Soon my husband’s company followed suit and the literal pause button ensued. Now, we were all together.  All day ‘ery day.  And I LOVED it.  I almost felt guilty for loving it so much, because there was literally a virus out there. And here I was happy to be home with my family.  Then wave 2 of 967 of guilt hit, but this one is a doosie.  The one where I am RN and NOT on the “frontlines” and somehow “not useful.” At least that was the negative tape playing in my head.  Super fun by the way.  Super fun to allow myself to second-guess a universal gift I was enjoying with my own family and my “new life” with a new job.  I felt like I had been given all those pieces that I had been asking for (for years) and it was topped with a big ‘ol dollop of guilt.  Great.  I felt like if I never heard the word “frontline” again, it would be too soon.  That was my own insecurity because I was not there in the “line of fire” on the “frontlines” like so many of my fellow nurses. Plus, scrolling social media wasn’t helping. I encountered too many posts of comparative suffering with some people claiming they had it “worse” than others based on _____ (insert any comparison here). Instead of supporting others, some chose the opposite approach. It made me sad and frankly disappointed. After all, EVERY ONE is going through this pandemic. Everyone has a story, something they are scared about, and unique experiences they are trying to navig8! In the midst of a crisis, we should be lifting each other instead of finding ways to tear each other down. Thankfully, my clear-headed husband was quick to remind me (as he often had to) that although I don’t work in the hospital, my work was valuable too. He reminded me that my new job provided an opportunity that I had been told many times I was “made for.”  So after a few weeks and lots of support, I let go of that guilt to free myself from my own insecurities and allow myself to embrace the gift of time we had been given.

In the first few weeks, I was in awe of the family bonding and the things we were doing that we literally had not done in I do not know how long.  Like an attitude of gratitude, I decided to look for the “Gifts of the Pandemic.” We worked on a puzzle, we played Life and TWISTER (that never gets old, come on!), and we had several Nerf wars in the dark! (If you have not tried that, I highly recommend it!)  We colored Mandala pages, we started watching Cheers together at night (yes, the Cheers from childhood!  “Norm” rings out multiple times a night as we binge-watch it as a family), we sanded and stained benches, and we repainted our firepit structure.  Our son and I repainted our bonus room in a color he picked out. He helped me from start to finish (no joke!) he literally hung in there with me LONG past when I thought there would be an expiration time on his enjoyment of that activity. We snuggled with our dog and we snuggled with each other.  We went for walks as a family.  Hello, when was the last time that happened?  Couldn’t tell ya.  We worked in the garden.  Our son even came up with his own way of prepping the veggie garden.  He dug a hole for his stool to sit in so he could be comfortable while clearing the weeds in the garden.  He even put a chair behind him to function like a recliner he could lean back on when he got tired.  Now that is ingenuity at its finest! We rearranged rooms in our home to bring new life into those frequently inhabited spaces. We cleaned out toys to donate to another good home. The boys worked on their eBay store excited to again sell items together. We discovered the once forgotten remote control truck, which was followed by hours of laughing as our dog chased it. It was in all the moments like these that I was able to truly see our family, celebrate the young man growing up before my eyes, and embrace the time we have been given. 

 I decided early on that I would make the conscious choice to make the very most of this situation, and that is what we did! The love, activities, and togetherness we have shared have been gifts.  After all, time is what I have been asking for and no matter the dark reason it has been afforded us, I will not take it for granted. The challenge that we all face is to ponder what this pandemic means, to keep a firm grasp on the lessons we’ve learned from this global pause, and remain energized by this enlightened perspective.