Szn of Chaos
You’ve seen all the memes and videos describing 2020.
You know the ones, the “what I thought 2020 would look like” summed up in a photo on the left… “what it actually looks like” perfectly portrayed on the right. Or the “if 2020 was a meme” and it’s a picture of Kelsey from Peter Webber’s disappointing but impossible-not-to-watch season of The Bachelor accidentally exploding a whole bottle of champagne in her face. I mean, these meme creators are genius.
Well, call me a glass-half-full kinda gal, but 2020 hasn’t been like that for me. Yes, I probably say “EW, COVID,” “WFH,” “cabin fever,” 50-1,000 times each week, and I sometimes want to pull my hair out from being home all day long with a one-year-old, but somehow I'm still seeing all the good there is right now. Yes, I said it: contrary to popular opinion, there IS good happening in 2020.
COVID has allowed me to work from home, which has its challenges, but the joy from being home definitely outweighs all those hard moments. Each morning I get to get my little boy out of his crib and snuggle him for a solid 20 minutes before I make him a hot breakfast. Pre-COVID? I would have to wake him up and get the show on the road. Literally. We would rush to get out the door and his daycare would feed him breakfast. I do work from the couch while he watches a cartoon and plays independently. Occasionally he crawls over to me asking for a quick snuggle before going back to watching Blippi or BabyFirst while taking his beanbags out and putting them back into an old Quaker Oats container. I’ve witnessed all his firsts from home— crawling, talking, and soon to come, walking. I know this time is special, and that I won’t get these moments where I can be fully present with my next baby.
The rest of my day is spent juggling work meetings, emails, projects, playtime, lunch, snacks, and naps. We go for a short lunch time walk around our neighborhood and sometimes take a few minutes to play in the yard or swing. So although I don’t know when work starts or ends because I am living in my work environment, I get to be present in my home. In April, we bought our dream house— it sits on an acre, has a treehouse and killer back yard. Not to mention the layout, kitchen, and overall style of it is my favorite to wake up to every morning.
Other good things of 2020? There is a HUGE movement happening on our social feeds and in our cities and small towns. Our collective being home has caused the world to slow down a little and really turn the focus onto important social issues that have come into the spotlight, like more people speaking up against racial injustices and more people feeling inspired to vote.
So, with all that being said, it’s August and I haven’t left my house, not even to go to the store, since the beginning of March. That’s *almost* S-I-X months of being home, stuck in my 1700 square foot house. Did I mention that I have a one year old? Oh, and I’m pregnant. So a couple of those early quarantine months I spent curled around the porcelain throne, with my toddler climbing on top of me. But like I said, even with all the challenges of working from home with a busy toddler running around, I appreciate the joy in this chaotic and weird season. And as the saying goes, “this too shall pass”.
Overall though, 2020 has been good to me. I sort-of feel guilty even writing that because I know there are so many other people who have not had a good year so far. The pandemic has brought illness and loss, furloughs and layoffs, stressful moments that are showing up differently for everyone; but it is showing up for everyone— even me. That’s the connector here. We are all truly in it right now, socially distanced but together.
And there is something quite comforting about this truth. Moments of pain followed by moments of joy followed by moments of questions followed by moments of peace. Knowing that the person next to you is experiencing it all, too; well, that’s connection. Maybe that’s the medicine we all need.
