Yesterday I was not in a good place. I kept avoiding my children (a difficult thing to do when we are all home together) and trying to check out emotionally. I wasn’t settled at bedtime and I had weird dreams. Thankfully, Kevin and I had a chance to talk last night and he agreed to take the lead on the kids today. So I slept for a few hours and then knitted and watched police dramas.
And I’ve been thinking. And thinking. And thinking about all this virus and pandemic and change. What I’m starting to realize is that normal is gone. All this week I was putting a band-aid on an open wound—trying to squeeze our regular life into this new and unfamiliar shape. And it wasn’t working. Sure some things were great. We played in the sprinklers and I got to work in my garden and the animals are happy with the warmer temperatures. But the fear and uncertainty continues to loom over me. My kids can feel it. They can’t say exactly but they know something isn’t right.
I don’t know how to live through a pandemic. I don’t know how to explain the risks to my 4 and 7 year old without scaring them. I don’t know how to interact with the new reality we live in. I don’t know where normal went. And all week I’ve been surviving and avoiding these issues. But I can see that normal is gone. Even if we return to “normal life” tomorrow, I won’t be the same. The world feels different and how I see it is different.
So I’m trying to brace myself and lean in. Because this is all new for me, but it’s not for God. He’s seen his people through terrible disasters and war and trial. He’s not deaf to our fear and sickness and boredom and anger. He knows we are struggling. So I’m putting down my phone and reading a bit of the psalms. There I find suffering and pleas for help but also hope and a reminder that God is constant, despite the shaking of our world.
Making noodles from scratch. One of the “if I had time” activities I plan to do more of during this quarantine.
Tonight and tomorrow, I’m digging in to cookbooks and looking at those “if I had time” ideas and making a new rhythm for our family. Some things will be amazing and others will be terrible. Some days we will be consumed by fear and some days we will forget why we are all home in the first place. Some days I’ll cry in the shower and some days I’ll have to pinch myself to remember this isn’t a dream. It’s just going to be weird for a while. But weird is ok. Weird can be good. At least, that’s my plan.