The Blessed Quarantine - Reality check

Ok, so I started this blog the other day with the idea that I was going to write about the wonderful things my family and I were doing now that we have time. The universe has given us time and I had grand plans for how much we were going to enjoy our home, by reading, creating, praying and being with each other. We were going to exercise and cook and clean out things and complete projects. Guess what...I was wrong! For the first week of this social experiment called "social distancing" I thought I was going to tear my own hair out.

See, I'm a school teacher. More specifically, I'm a special education teacher. I work specifically with kids who have behavioral needs. My job doesn't translate to the distance learning model that we are currently using. I was completely lost. I wanted to figure it all out right now. I wanted to post these amazing ideas to a website that I have barely maintained in the 7 years that I have had it. I wanted to suddenly understand the technology that I actively (and proudly) avoid using in my classroom because I like the human part of my job. In fact, I love the human part of my job. It's my favorite part. Truth be told, it's probably the only part I'm really good at.

My own personal children are very intelligent and independent, so in my head I didn't need to worry about them. They needed a schedule and the assignments that their amazing teachers (my wonderful colleagues) would post and they'd be good to go. I mentally made plans for how we would all get up on time, say our morning prayers, do a prayerful reflection and eat a healthy breakfast. I pictured a Mary Poppins type scenario that ran smoothly and without stress.

Well, none of that happened. I couldn't figure out what to do for my students. I couldn't figure out how to help them, which rattled me to my core. My own children were distracted by all the freedom and I was getting messages from their teachers (my amazing colleagues) about the fact that they were not finishing assignments. I literally thought I was going to lose my mind. Everyone seemed to have it figured out but me. How could I possibly have so little success at something that seemed so easy?

Then it hit me. What you need to understand is that I'm a control freak. I don't like to admit that, because there is a vulnerability in exposing that about myself. I mean, it's not huge secret among my friends and loved ones, but when I say it out loud that's scary. So after having a couple of meltdowns (I want to say mini meltdowns, but they weren't) I stopped. I fulfilled a commitment to a friend and delivered a puzzle to her. God had her outside when I pulled up in front of her apartment so I got to see her in person. We talked for a bit, from a safe distance, and our few minutes talking was exactly what I needed to remind me that God has it. God was trying to get me to let go.

So here I am, on day seven of this social distancing, school from home, distance learning craziness realizing that the peace is not in the control or the perfection of our schedule. The peace is knowing that God's got it and I need to give up control because He's always got it. For the record, I'm sure He will have to remind me of this several more times before this over, but that's the beauty of our God. He won't give up. He won't give up on us or on offering us chances to move closer to Him.