OK, But When Will This Get Better?

This is a rhetorical question…

I don’t think anyone can pinpoint when we’re going to start an uphill swing. We’re over six months into this pandemic now. Six months of living with an extra layer of stress. We’re frustrated and spent. We understand we’re not going back to “normal,” but we want progress.

It’s fine sometimes, and other times, it’s far from it. While I would be much more comfortable knowing an end point, there is so much that remains unknown and unpredictable.

The kids are a few weeks into this virtual school year. They’re adjusting. I have been telling friends and family that they’re doing OK with it. Then in the same day, someone from the school called my husband to say one of the kids got a shout-out for being “ready and respectful,” while I got a call from the school counselor because the kids’ teacher said they are having problems focusing and not finishing their assignments.

I took the news politely and said we would work more with them to ensure their work is getting done. We believe their education is very important, so of course we will pay more of our already divided attention to their school assignment lists. However, the longer I thought about this, the more worked up I got. 

Of course they are having trouble focusing!

I can barely focus with everyone in the house working and schooling, not to mention what’s happening everywhere else. And there has been noisy utility work going on right outside our house for what feels like 19 years, which is just extra super helpful right now. I wonder if there are kids out there who are perfectly fine with everything right now and through all of this uncertainty and novelty, still managing to be shining-star students. And if there are, good for them. Really, really good.

Hello, we are in a P. A. N. D. E. M. I. C.

There is a national shortage on focusing. Every day, often multiple times a day, we hear about some awful news and some horrible information. The latest staggering COVID-19 statistics, widespread racial injustice, good people dying, the West Coast burning, the Southwest being attacked by hurricane after hurricane. Just to name a few current issues. It’s a mental and emotional assault, and we’re all taking the hit. Our kids are somewhat sheltered from it, but what affects us has a trickle-down effect on them.

Before virtual school started, our home was a place of comfort and peace of mind. A place to let loose and be ourselves. Now that we’ve added school into this for several hours a day, it’s not ideal, to say the least. For any of us. Now we’re two work-at-home parents and two school-at-home children and the clocks have never been looked at harder to keep schedules straight. 

We’re trying to make some crappy lemonade out of crappy lemons here.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling unmoored, unanchored. Floating on the open sea with no dry land in sight and trying to keep the whole family in life vests and relatively good spirits. I’m rotating between fear, anger, and sadness on a regular basis. I just want to know we’re not far off from some sort of relief and rescue…