The Blessed Quarantine - Building a normal we can live with
About three and half years ago my father passed away very unexpectedly. It was literally horrible. I felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest every morning, for what could easily have been forever. A couple of weeks...or maybe months, I'm not sure because life was pretty much a slow motion blur at that point, I remember receiving a text from a friend saying that she was praying for me and my family as we "navigate this new normal" and I remember thinking this is not normal. This will never be normal. How can anything ever be normal again? I don't even want this to be normal, because that means it's normal that my dad is gone. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Well, the other day someone was talking about the "current normal" and I remember having almost the same reaction to the statement. It wasn't as visceral as the reaction to the text three years ago, but it was still from the gut. I wanted to say "is this what's passing as normal now? because it kind of sucks". I mean, I don't know about you, but I hate going to the grocery store with a mask on or getting the side eye from others if I choose not to wear one. I hate waiting 40 minutes in the drive through at the bank because I can't go into the lobby to cash a check. (We are people people and we actually know our bank tellers...I know that's a little odd and old fashioned but we like it that way.) I hate feeling like I have to explain that safety precautions were taken when I went to the hair salon to get my new super fun amazing hair instead of just posting a picture and waiting for the comments to roll in. (My stylist is amazing and my hair colors are wildly fun so comments flow.) I really don't want this as normal. I don't like feeling separated from people and all of these things make me feel separated from people.
While so many things about this situation are separating us from each other, there are some things that are going on that are bringing us together and not in the cheesy PSA ways that are popping up on social media but in real human ways. My children are both unique, bold and unapologetically themselves (this is a co-worker's description and I love it). These traits are awesome, but they make middle school really, really hard sometimes. Neither of them are ones to complain about things but there are times when they let it out a little and those times are painful as a parent. They put on their "thick skin" and ignore the buttheads as much as possible. They both have good friends who embrace their unique traits and let them be themselves but they spend a lot of time wearing thick skin. I know for a fact that this is an exhausting thing to do, especially in middle school. (I'll let you in on a secret, I wasn't always this comfortable being the weirdo I am.) So a lot of times by the time they relax completely, it's time to go back to wearing their thick skin so they can deal with the buttheads. NOTE: I want to make this very clear, I am not saying my kids are being bullied. That is not what I am talking about, I am talking about middle school kids who have trouble dealing with other middle school kids who march to their own drummers.
So, let's look at how this situation has impacted my unapologetically unique middle shoolers. My twelve year old male offspring is a sweet, gentle soul who thinks everyone follows the rules and wants what's best for each other. He loves to build things and create things and hang out with his family. Serving as an altar boy in our church is one of his favorite things to do. These are traits that a lot of middle school boys see has silly. He's a little naive and honestly, I love that about him. He does the right thing because it's the right thing (most of the time - I mean he's not a saint and I don't want to paint him as one). Ok, so, he wants to be an engineer and he's currently taking an engineering course that is being taught through distance learning by our amazing engineering teacher and she assigned a project to build a Rube Goldberg machine. You would have thought this kid had just been told he was being graded on how much fun he could have. For about a week and a half he designed, built and rebuilt a machine that had the purpose of dropping a water balloon on his own head. It was incredible to watch. The amount of pride he had in the work he did filled me with true joy. He has truly embraced his desire to tinker and take apart the things in our home. Not always to the benefit of others (seriously, could he leave ONE functioning flashlight in the house) but he is inspired by the opportunity to build, play and discover in our own backyard. He seems completely carefree and uninhibited. It's really cool to see and I can't help but think that it is at least partly related to the fact that he doesn't have to worry about what anyone else thinks. He's not trying to impress the "sporty kids" (it seems jocks is not the current term) or be in competition with the kids he has deemed smarter than him. He's just taking apart flashlights, widdling spears (post apocalyptic weapons could be useful) and building Rube Goldberg machines.
As for the things I have noticed in my female offspring, they have been a little more subtle, which makes complete sense because she is way more quiet about the stuff that hurts her (usually). She loves to draw and read. She teaches Sunday school for the younger kids at our church and really enjoys that. Her core group of friends has become very important to her over the last couple of years. She and her brother have not had as much in common which isn't really surprising because they are both figuring out who they are. There have been a couple of times where some sibling rivalry stuff sort of peeked out and I was a little sad. Part of why we had our children close together is so they would have shared experiences and be more likely to be friends, so when that started to wane, I was sad. No matter how normal it is to go through these things, it's hard to watch as a parent. So in a setting where the majority of her social interactions are either with her parents or her brother, she has started talking to all of us more and it's been really awesome. She has seemed more comfortable in her skin and has let that skin thin out a little, so to speak. Without the need to protect herself from the comments from buttheads (we can be buttheads in our family, but we try not to do it often) she gets to relax a little. She gets to hang out in the hammock listening to her musicals and reading on her phone. She gets to curl up on the couch and watch TV with family and help her dad cook dinner. The other day, her brother asked her to join him in a water balloon battle (there were lots of extras after the Rube Goldberg machine) and she said yes. It was so fun to listen to the two of them laugh and squeal with joy while playing in the backyard. I'm not really sure the last time I heard her have so much unadulterated fun.
The ability to relax and have true fun is something that I also have been learning to do. I'm learning that it's ok to not have a to do list that keeps every moment productive. We have a pretty big yard. I love our big yard and for years I have wanted something in one of the back corners that gets great sun. We did a little rearranging with our yard furniture and had some chairs with a table that didn't really have a home, so I decided to put them in that spot. Or rather, decided to have my son put them in that spot. On several occasions since then I have sat back there. A couple of times I chatted on the phone but my favorite time was sitting back there with an adult beverage listening to my brother do a live concert on social media. He's a professional musician and he's been doing these live shows lately. It's been great because I usually only get to hear him play once or twice a year when I am at my mom's, but with the current situation and him doing live shows, I've gotten to listen to him once or twice a week for the last couple of weeks. Listening to him play is one of the most relaxing things in my life and having that available has been fantastic. So the other day, I sat in the sun, drinking an adult beverage and listening to my brother play while my female offspring hung out in the hammock reading. We both did something we don't do very often, we relaxed...intentionally.
There is nothing normal about this situation and truly, I don't ever want this situation to be the norm, but the truth is, there are things happening because of this abnormal that could never happen otherwise. There is space for healing and joy that isn't usually available. There is time for love to fill the cracks of our souls. There is time for us to let down our walls a little so that we can embrace who we are in a safe space. There is time to seek out the people who give us permission to be ourselves (while maintaining social distancing protocols) and there is time to be quiet. I'm amazed by how often my own brain drones on filling the space and silence making it impossible for me to truly relax. God wants us to be quiet and still. He wants to fill that time and space for us. The thing is if we are always filling it and putting up walls, He has to wait for us to open that door. He will wait, though.
Obviously, there will be a time when the schedule starts to get full again, when the pages of my planner are filled with appointments and events that all happen back to back, or even at the same time and figuring out how to get everyone to everything becomes a part of our norm again. However, I really hope that we are able to remember how much we have enjoyed this quiet space at home. I hope that the water balloon fights, widdling and music in the sun have the pull to call us back with their sweet siren song. The box checking and to do lists will still be there, because let's face it, life will eventually get busy again, but maybe parts of this experience can stay with us and help us build a different norm.
The new normal that people are talking about is going to happen, we are going to see changes in how things are done. Some of them are really pleasant for me (I actually love the directions on the grocery store aisles. I know it's nuts, but the structure makes me happy.), others make me sad (preparing for how to return to in person church services has me thinking about things that I will miss), and some others are even a little scary to me (what the heck is school going to look like) but see, I can't change those things. What I can do is build a normal that I can live with. I think that knowing there are things I will never be in control of as this normal unfolds let's me focus on the things I can be in control of. I can be in control of embracing the changes at church, because I love going to church and I want that to happen again for everyone who can be there, so I will embrace the presence of God in the guidance we are receiving for how to begin in person services again. I can control the number of things we say yes to as a household, therefor opening up more space in our calendar. I can control how much I expect from myself and my family when it comes to our to do list. Learning to not require that every minute is productive has offered me the opportunity to say yes to trips to the park and strawberry picking. I can control making time to listen to my brother do something he truly loves which in turn offers me time to intentionally relax.
This quarantine situation has been thrust upon us and most of us are begrudgingly getting through, but as we come to other side of it, we have an opportunity. An opportunity that hasn't been there, or at least hasn't been obvious, in the past. It's the opportunity to build the normal we can live with. We get to take the pieces of this process that we like and figure out how to keep them. Yes there will be pieces of this that we are told/asked to keep by others and we might not like those pieces, but hopefully, if there's a good reason to keep them, we will agree to it, but the next section of this process is a blank slate and we can build the normal we can live with.
I firmly believe that God does not want us to be checking all the boxes and filling every moment with something to do. If there is one lesson that I pray I take with me after all of this, it is this: It's ok to have empty space. That's where the healing happens. That's where I can have my best conversations, with myself (yes, I talk to myself), with my children, with my brothers and sisters-in-law, with my husband, with my friends and with God. The thing is, I have to let the quiet happen, so I can hear the answers. God will wait for me remember that and that makes me very happy as we build the normal we can live with.
NOTE: This post took a while for me to finish. I'm not sure why, but it just did. In fact, it took so long, my children and husband grew me a deck for Mother's Day in the area I talked about. Below are three pictures, the original lawn furniture male offspring moved for me and two of the deck. I have been stretching on the deck every day this week and it is so wonderful.
Well, the other day someone was talking about the "current normal" and I remember having almost the same reaction to the statement. It wasn't as visceral as the reaction to the text three years ago, but it was still from the gut. I wanted to say "is this what's passing as normal now? because it kind of sucks". I mean, I don't know about you, but I hate going to the grocery store with a mask on or getting the side eye from others if I choose not to wear one. I hate waiting 40 minutes in the drive through at the bank because I can't go into the lobby to cash a check. (We are people people and we actually know our bank tellers...I know that's a little odd and old fashioned but we like it that way.) I hate feeling like I have to explain that safety precautions were taken when I went to the hair salon to get my new super fun amazing hair instead of just posting a picture and waiting for the comments to roll in. (My stylist is amazing and my hair colors are wildly fun so comments flow.) I really don't want this as normal. I don't like feeling separated from people and all of these things make me feel separated from people.
While so many things about this situation are separating us from each other, there are some things that are going on that are bringing us together and not in the cheesy PSA ways that are popping up on social media but in real human ways. My children are both unique, bold and unapologetically themselves (this is a co-worker's description and I love it). These traits are awesome, but they make middle school really, really hard sometimes. Neither of them are ones to complain about things but there are times when they let it out a little and those times are painful as a parent. They put on their "thick skin" and ignore the buttheads as much as possible. They both have good friends who embrace their unique traits and let them be themselves but they spend a lot of time wearing thick skin. I know for a fact that this is an exhausting thing to do, especially in middle school. (I'll let you in on a secret, I wasn't always this comfortable being the weirdo I am.) So a lot of times by the time they relax completely, it's time to go back to wearing their thick skin so they can deal with the buttheads. NOTE: I want to make this very clear, I am not saying my kids are being bullied. That is not what I am talking about, I am talking about middle school kids who have trouble dealing with other middle school kids who march to their own drummers.
So, let's look at how this situation has impacted my unapologetically unique middle shoolers. My twelve year old male offspring is a sweet, gentle soul who thinks everyone follows the rules and wants what's best for each other. He loves to build things and create things and hang out with his family. Serving as an altar boy in our church is one of his favorite things to do. These are traits that a lot of middle school boys see has silly. He's a little naive and honestly, I love that about him. He does the right thing because it's the right thing (most of the time - I mean he's not a saint and I don't want to paint him as one). Ok, so, he wants to be an engineer and he's currently taking an engineering course that is being taught through distance learning by our amazing engineering teacher and she assigned a project to build a Rube Goldberg machine. You would have thought this kid had just been told he was being graded on how much fun he could have. For about a week and a half he designed, built and rebuilt a machine that had the purpose of dropping a water balloon on his own head. It was incredible to watch. The amount of pride he had in the work he did filled me with true joy. He has truly embraced his desire to tinker and take apart the things in our home. Not always to the benefit of others (seriously, could he leave ONE functioning flashlight in the house) but he is inspired by the opportunity to build, play and discover in our own backyard. He seems completely carefree and uninhibited. It's really cool to see and I can't help but think that it is at least partly related to the fact that he doesn't have to worry about what anyone else thinks. He's not trying to impress the "sporty kids" (it seems jocks is not the current term) or be in competition with the kids he has deemed smarter than him. He's just taking apart flashlights, widdling spears (post apocalyptic weapons could be useful) and building Rube Goldberg machines.
As for the things I have noticed in my female offspring, they have been a little more subtle, which makes complete sense because she is way more quiet about the stuff that hurts her (usually). She loves to draw and read. She teaches Sunday school for the younger kids at our church and really enjoys that. Her core group of friends has become very important to her over the last couple of years. She and her brother have not had as much in common which isn't really surprising because they are both figuring out who they are. There have been a couple of times where some sibling rivalry stuff sort of peeked out and I was a little sad. Part of why we had our children close together is so they would have shared experiences and be more likely to be friends, so when that started to wane, I was sad. No matter how normal it is to go through these things, it's hard to watch as a parent. So in a setting where the majority of her social interactions are either with her parents or her brother, she has started talking to all of us more and it's been really awesome. She has seemed more comfortable in her skin and has let that skin thin out a little, so to speak. Without the need to protect herself from the comments from buttheads (we can be buttheads in our family, but we try not to do it often) she gets to relax a little. She gets to hang out in the hammock listening to her musicals and reading on her phone. She gets to curl up on the couch and watch TV with family and help her dad cook dinner. The other day, her brother asked her to join him in a water balloon battle (there were lots of extras after the Rube Goldberg machine) and she said yes. It was so fun to listen to the two of them laugh and squeal with joy while playing in the backyard. I'm not really sure the last time I heard her have so much unadulterated fun.
The ability to relax and have true fun is something that I also have been learning to do. I'm learning that it's ok to not have a to do list that keeps every moment productive. We have a pretty big yard. I love our big yard and for years I have wanted something in one of the back corners that gets great sun. We did a little rearranging with our yard furniture and had some chairs with a table that didn't really have a home, so I decided to put them in that spot. Or rather, decided to have my son put them in that spot. On several occasions since then I have sat back there. A couple of times I chatted on the phone but my favorite time was sitting back there with an adult beverage listening to my brother do a live concert on social media. He's a professional musician and he's been doing these live shows lately. It's been great because I usually only get to hear him play once or twice a year when I am at my mom's, but with the current situation and him doing live shows, I've gotten to listen to him once or twice a week for the last couple of weeks. Listening to him play is one of the most relaxing things in my life and having that available has been fantastic. So the other day, I sat in the sun, drinking an adult beverage and listening to my brother play while my female offspring hung out in the hammock reading. We both did something we don't do very often, we relaxed...intentionally.
There is nothing normal about this situation and truly, I don't ever want this situation to be the norm, but the truth is, there are things happening because of this abnormal that could never happen otherwise. There is space for healing and joy that isn't usually available. There is time for love to fill the cracks of our souls. There is time for us to let down our walls a little so that we can embrace who we are in a safe space. There is time to seek out the people who give us permission to be ourselves (while maintaining social distancing protocols) and there is time to be quiet. I'm amazed by how often my own brain drones on filling the space and silence making it impossible for me to truly relax. God wants us to be quiet and still. He wants to fill that time and space for us. The thing is if we are always filling it and putting up walls, He has to wait for us to open that door. He will wait, though.
Obviously, there will be a time when the schedule starts to get full again, when the pages of my planner are filled with appointments and events that all happen back to back, or even at the same time and figuring out how to get everyone to everything becomes a part of our norm again. However, I really hope that we are able to remember how much we have enjoyed this quiet space at home. I hope that the water balloon fights, widdling and music in the sun have the pull to call us back with their sweet siren song. The box checking and to do lists will still be there, because let's face it, life will eventually get busy again, but maybe parts of this experience can stay with us and help us build a different norm.
The new normal that people are talking about is going to happen, we are going to see changes in how things are done. Some of them are really pleasant for me (I actually love the directions on the grocery store aisles. I know it's nuts, but the structure makes me happy.), others make me sad (preparing for how to return to in person church services has me thinking about things that I will miss), and some others are even a little scary to me (what the heck is school going to look like) but see, I can't change those things. What I can do is build a normal that I can live with. I think that knowing there are things I will never be in control of as this normal unfolds let's me focus on the things I can be in control of. I can be in control of embracing the changes at church, because I love going to church and I want that to happen again for everyone who can be there, so I will embrace the presence of God in the guidance we are receiving for how to begin in person services again. I can control the number of things we say yes to as a household, therefor opening up more space in our calendar. I can control how much I expect from myself and my family when it comes to our to do list. Learning to not require that every minute is productive has offered me the opportunity to say yes to trips to the park and strawberry picking. I can control making time to listen to my brother do something he truly loves which in turn offers me time to intentionally relax.
This quarantine situation has been thrust upon us and most of us are begrudgingly getting through, but as we come to other side of it, we have an opportunity. An opportunity that hasn't been there, or at least hasn't been obvious, in the past. It's the opportunity to build the normal we can live with. We get to take the pieces of this process that we like and figure out how to keep them. Yes there will be pieces of this that we are told/asked to keep by others and we might not like those pieces, but hopefully, if there's a good reason to keep them, we will agree to it, but the next section of this process is a blank slate and we can build the normal we can live with.
I firmly believe that God does not want us to be checking all the boxes and filling every moment with something to do. If there is one lesson that I pray I take with me after all of this, it is this: It's ok to have empty space. That's where the healing happens. That's where I can have my best conversations, with myself (yes, I talk to myself), with my children, with my brothers and sisters-in-law, with my husband, with my friends and with God. The thing is, I have to let the quiet happen, so I can hear the answers. God will wait for me remember that and that makes me very happy as we build the normal we can live with.
NOTE: This post took a while for me to finish. I'm not sure why, but it just did. In fact, it took so long, my children and husband grew me a deck for Mother's Day in the area I talked about. Below are three pictures, the original lawn furniture male offspring moved for me and two of the deck. I have been stretching on the deck every day this week and it is so wonderful.
Original seating area
Offspring working on deck
Staining of the deck
I feel like teaching was so long ago for me though it was only 6 months ago. I had my closure then, but as I see teachers posting being finished for the school year, regardless of what that looked like for each, I felt kind of sad. My new position is 12-month as opposed to 190 days, so I'm working through the summer instead of having it off. However, though I enjoyed teaching and collaborating with my colleagues, I don't really miss teaching, well the parts that made teaching unenjoyable such as constantly emailing parents on grade status or messaging students to get work and then grading late work that is 2 months old. I miss the planning and creating lesson ideas that are creative and exposing students to new ideas.
ReplyDeleteI have lots of different feels currently. One, it has been weird learning a new job from home; I only went into the office for 14 days until we were sent home for an early spring break and then to work from home until further notice, which happens to be this coming Monday 6/1. Two, I've had the opportunity to read, a pleasure of mine that I haven't enjoyed since I started my PhD program. It's been enjoyable to finish up my day of work, work out, have dinner, and read for the rest of the evening. Three, I successfully defended my dissertation at the very beginning of shelter-in-place. Though that day was so joyful and relieved so much stress, it felt anti-climatic. I was unable to physically celebrate with the people who made it possible. As weeks went by and graduation was canceled, I felt sad. Though I will have an opportunity to walk at the next graduation (whenever that is), I don't have the anticipation of that closure to my degree. Maybe that will change once I receive my diploma in my mail. Fourth, I have had the opportunity to cook and experiment with different recipes. When I would usually eat out, I now eat at home. Do I miss eating out, yes, but cooking has been become pleasurable as I go through the process of preparing meals. Fifth and lastly, I think I have been in better contact with friends than before this pandemic began. I or them will message to check-in or we set-up face-to-face meetings online to talk. Instead of planning when it would work best to meet up on a weekend, we now plan when it works best to chat digitally at time during the day.
Like you, I have embraced this current normal and taken part in activities that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I look forward to the normal that comes after this. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my new chair and curl up with a book or two or four. :)