Woah! The year 2020 really did a number on us, didn’t it? Here we are one moment, blasting our complicated lives into New Year 2020 with newfound resolutions of finishing this, losing that, and reaching all our impossible goals, then the next moment we’re all confined to our little square footage on Mother Earth, some totally alone….some, after a few months, wishing they were alone. You know all those posts and articles you see on how being stuck together in the house because of the pandemic is bringing the family closer together…well, my first reaction to that is bullshit! I mean, who are those families? Do those families even still exist? I mean, life isn’t a 1990’s sitcom where everyone hugs it out and solves the day’s problems at the dinner table. Life is much more messy than that, and when you introduce high stress, fear, and close proximity to each other, let me assure you, you’ll need an umbrella, a big umbrella, because there will come a point when shit will hit the fan and you, my dear, will be right in the middle of the shitstorm. Personalities clashing, miscommunication, unmet expectations, flaring tempers, and depression are just a few side effects of cabin fever.
Yet, what goes down….must eventually come up. I’m seeing that with our family. We are at month eight…EIGHT…of working from home and homeschooling. The first few months were like the honeymoon phase. It was nice to just roll out of bed, fire up the laptop, check in with your coworkers, do your work, then close the laptop and stroll right into your own kitchen at the end of the workday. Heck, my kids didn’t even roll out of bed to attend their virtual classes, I’m not entirely sure they even kept their eyes open the entire time. But then, you start getting tired of seeing the same four walls 24/7, you start missing your friends, your coworkers. And before you know it, every little thing annoys the daylight out of you. You’re grumpy, depressed, and hiding from the world outside your door. You stop putting your pants on for your virtual office meetings, because no one dares turn on the video any more.
And you remind yourself, we’re all in the same boat. We’re all just trying to survive 2020 and adapt to the crazy world we’ve found ourselves in. So how DO we survive the rest of 2020? With two months to go, the Holidays just around the corner, we are entering a time of the year that is normally stressful…and that’s PRE-Covid. Honestly, we are still working that out ourselves. Sometimes, there is no clear answer. My best advice right now, is to keep taking it one day at a time, and keep trying different things until life falls back into place. Because, eventually, it will. It may be a different place from where you bagan, it will likely be a different place from what you expect or planned. But it will fall into place. We have to have that hope and help each other get through it.
And when your kids or loved ones are driving you crazy and testing your ability to be a loving, compassionate human beings, just remember that they’re just trying to survive 2020, as well.
How are you surviving 2020?
-Jo-
