March hits and I begin to feel uneasy. March used to bring me joy and a sense of renewed hope that Spring was coming and the constant chill in my body would eventually fade. But now all I feel is dread (with a dash of serotonin when the sun hits my skin just right). For the past two years I have written down my thoughts around this time of year, because my brain feels like it will explode otherwise.

I don’t have a long entry for March 2022…maybe it will come in April. But right now, my brain just feels like static on a distant radio station. The world is once again in turmoil and once again there is nothing I can truly do besides donate what I can to the right organizations, pray (unsure about that even most days), continue to raise my children the best I can, and breathe in and breathe out.

Maybe the static in my head will fade quickly, maybe it won’t. But to be honest, I think the static is my brain’s survival mechanism, because if I could think too clearly about this at all I might truly lose what’s left of my mind.

I think often about who I was before all of this…the 2019 version of myself…and although I would give anything most days to go back to 2019’s version of “normal”, I would not go back to the 2019 version of me. Many people in society have also experienced an awakening, creating the beginning of a massive social shift that will hopefully only gain momentum over time.

So here were my thoughts from the past 2 years. Hopefully one day I can have my renewed sense of hope in March, but until then I will attempt to manage the static in my head. 

4/30/2020

The funny thing about “normal” is how often we have to adjust to a new one. It’s been a while since I wrote in this gratitude journal…and much has happened in the past 4 years…1 cross country move, retirement from the stage, career transition from director to staff, 2 healthy kiddos, and now 1 global pandemic. We are on day 48ish of quarantine. No work (except for remote/live-streams), no school, no parks, no restaurants. Only essential workers should leave their homes, no visits with friends or family, no travel, no trips, no weddings, no funerals, no parties, no gatherings. Social distance, masks, gloves, bleach, sanitizer…those are all a part of our new “normal”.

I hope the girls are young enough that the main thing they remember is not the stress of job security, death and economic destruction, but rather, more present parents, creative “beach” days and campouts in the basement. More family dinners. More books. More walks. More love. It’s funny when your entire “identity” as a teacher/working mom/etc. has to be reassessed.  Many of the things referenced earlier in this journal still hold true, which is wonderful. But “job security” and “finding my calling”, trips, etc. are all up in the air. I’ve found you should always go and see family and friends often and show up for big events. You never know when they become things of the past or a fond memory. I long to be able to visit my grandparents and I hope we will be able to re-do our canceled trip. I hope that everyone can gather for G’s birthday (in lieu of her baptism). I hope that summer is not “canceled” and G and D get to be kids again. I hope that normal returns again…but I have a feeling that is very far away. I will be turning 33 in quarantine…that’s a bizarre sentence to write. Luckily restaurants do curbside pickup and cocktails to-go…what a strange world. I have been unable to cry and I’m waiting for an epic melt-down. The closest I’ve gotten is watching D watch a Sesame Street special on Covid-19; it was so bizarre and surreal. Having Big Bird explain virology to my child is not something I foresaw in my future, but here we are. 

There’s no parenting book on parenting in a pandemic and no mothers or grandmothers to ask how to do this. Every day is a new day and all we can do is our best little by little. 

Every dish we wash, bath we give, “school” lesson taught—we are making progress. No matter how small. I guess this is what people call survival. I feel dramatic and dumb feeling like what we are doing is “hard”—but having your entire life ripped away and being shut in your house—I feel like that is difficult. It’s not war, but it is life-changing. It’s our “new normal”. 

Our lives have been taken down to the studs—and in doing so I am creating a new chapter in gratitude.

-Bright, imaginative, resilient children

-Our health

-Our family’s health

-Reconnecting with friends and distant family over zoom

-Learning to truly find happiness from within

-Bloom where you are planted has a much deeper meaning now

-Taking time for THIS… and reading, painting, meditating, analyzing me….

-Truly second-guessing my true calling

-Food on our table

-Strong martinis

-Extra time with my husband and daughters

I hope as the world re-opens, we don’t forget all we have realized while we were away. I hope in all the busy we can find the stillness, the joy in the mundane. I hope we all become less wasteful. More creative. More resourceful. More loving. More forgiving. More grateful. More human.

I hope I never forget all I realized when I had nowhere to turn except inwards.

3/12/21 

Isn’t it funny how everything is the same, but yet everything has changed? One year. One year since the shutdown. Once year since the state of emergency was declared. Once year since J came home from NYC and said something was off and we needed to stock up on food. One year since I told my students “See you in 2 weeks!”…and then saw some of them 6 months later…some of them never again. One year since I was on the elliptical like my life depended on it and then laid on the carpet panicking and unable to breathe hearing about the rations at the grocery store and distanced lines wrapping around stores. One year since the pictures began to emerge out of Italy and NYC. Nameless bodies. Unmarked graves. One year since schools became shut “indefinitely”. One year of working, living, loving, and learning under one roof. One year of growth. One year of change. One year of becoming. Although 2020 is not a year I want to relive, let alone discuss often, it is a year I have to thank for who I am becoming. I am becoming ME. A stronger me. A more knowing me. A me who trusts me. A me who respects me. A complete and total me. I have completely changed how I parent, due to necessity and survival, but this parent respects and listens to her children and is breaking generations upon generations of cycles and curses. By healing me, I am healing my children’s children. And that is not a task I take lightly. I hope the girls remember the laughter, the “adventures” at home and very close by home, the IHOP breakfasts in the basement, pizza and movie nights, dance parties even while our country was at war with itself. But most of all I hope they remember the love. So much love. Love through the brightest of days and love through the darkest of fears. Will they remember the Sesame Street specials on pandemics and racism? The testing sites with masked and gloved strangers all so they could see loved ones? Will they remember going with their mother to get vaccinated at a Wal-Mart? Waiting in the garden center in tiny masks, doing their small part to help normalcy return? It’s strange to think how this will be in history books. You always read history and wonder how your ancestors made it through…I’ve come to realize you have no choice. You move forward. You rest when you must, but above all else it is human nature to move forward. There is nothing heroic about surviving. It just must be done. 

A year later, we are still living distanced, masked, sanitized, and no where near what normal used to be. I cannot fathom the losses we have suffered as a country and we will feel these losses for generations. But I know that despite the outside world remaining unchanged, I have had a transformation. I choose to be the light in the darkness. The hope for the hopeless and the love for those who feel lost. I choose joy. But most of all, I am deciding to choose me. Day after day, I will continue to commit and show up for me. Because, after all, I am stuck with me until the end. How funny that the one person we are guaranteed to be with for as long as we are alive, we so easily forsake.

Hope is here. There is light coming; I can feel it. I choose to find the light in me even if I can’t find it in the world. One year later, nothing has changed, but yet I have.