2020 has been a year and it is only August as I write this purely opinion piece needing to get it out into the void.
January 30 – Had Emmett Joel while both my husband and I suffered from a severe version of the Flu
March – Lockdown began & I went back to work full time
March – > August – went through constant childcare headaches attempting to find normalcy and losing multiple nannies and overwhelming family with constant childcare requests.
Oh yeah and people are dying, our country is more divided than ever, work is double stacked with new business (great problem to have but still a problem for staffing/ bandwidth) and I have 2 kids under 2 that just want their mother. I know it isn’t just me taking it one day at a time just trying to breathe. Let alone actually maintain my mental or physical health to anything above “Can I just sleep until life is better?” But I want to just scream into the void until something, anything gets better.
So, what the hell to do?
1.) Make a list of every single thing you want to do when the world goes back to “normal”. Well, semi-normal as I don’t think our previous version of normal is going to exist again anytime soon. So far mine contains:
- Fall Trip
- Thinking Maine? Leaves, coast, lobster, walkable city. Pleaaasseeee Covid go away. All I want for xMas is for you to be gone
- Gathering of Friends
- Girls weekend – somewhere with no kids, spa, alcohol, or cabin in the woods where we can scream into the silence after this insane year
- Barbecue with kids playing with other kids vs. staying home without socializing driving mommy crazy
- Yoga
- Hot, sweaty yoga with people and no babies and just an hour to myself to desperately try to get my body looking like anything other than I succeeded at 600lb life
2.) Breathe, woosah, meditate, or whatever the hell needed to reduce stress and calm your mind.
3.) Understand what you want your post- COVID life to look like. Are you going to want to be back in the office? Have you realized its overrated? Do you want to pursue something you are more passionate about?
4.) Grit your teeth and prepare for the worst and decide what you need at a minimum to be happy. This whole COVID thing isn’t going away, and from the sounds of it, something like this happening with decent frequency may be a thing as well so focus on you (and potentially your family). What do you need to be happy? What do you want your life to look like? This can be as broad or as general as you want it. I won’t lie, this has me struggling right now as I finally have a moment to think, and I’m realizing my life isn’t where I want it to be or even on the path to where I want it to be. Anyone else? Quarter life – COVID crisis anyone?
While COVID has been tough and having small children while working full time and not having dedicated childcare or magic elves to clean my house is a struggle, there are some truly beautiful things that have come about in 2020.
- People. We hear each other, have slowed down, and are starting to listen to our neighbors. Hell we are realizing we have neighbors again. Waving, learning each other’s names, and just trying to connect to people again. Despite the news portraying doomsday, Idk about you, but I have noticed a significant shift in the humanity of everyone. We seem to remember that people are people and we are all in this together. ABOUT.DAMN.TIME. I work in IT with quite a few client’s, hearing kids on screenshares or pets, or housework being done is the new normal, and honestly? I LOVE IT. We have put the personal back in business and the results are a better connected and personal result in our projects. (Anyone that says “It’s Business, it’s not personal” drives me crazy as unless you’re working without people involved, it’s PERSONAL) I wish it didn’t take a Global Pandemic to get here, but I’ll take it.
- Environment. People are staying home more and being more conscientious as we kinda have to. Our world is healing and we are starting to see the beauty in it again as we are forced to go out and experience our world (as there really isn’t much else to do). I love seeing clear water, less smog, and people just overall value our environment again. There is so much that we don’t want to lose about our planet and we are all collectively being forced to see it.
- Culture. While the USA is actively trying to rip itself in 2 according to the media, that’s not what I’ve seen. More and more I see both sides coming together to have a conversation. Learn more about where the other is coming from and figure it out together. We realize the problem is with our government and media more than with each other. Systematically we have a lot of work to do, but individually I feel that we have made substantial improvements to remembering we are all here together.
- Community. Buying local is something I feel we are all trying to do more of and just overall being more involved with our local communities. Whether that is listening in on whats going on in our local governments, school districts, or just our neighborhoods, we are learning more about the space around us vs. killing ourselves in the rat race. We are learning the value in our communities again and getting picky about how we want them to operate.
While COVID -19 is pretty terrible, I’m rather overwhelmed and stressed most days, and the world seems to be going to shit, I don’t think I’m alone, hell I don’t even feel alone for once, and for some reason, that helps. We are all here, we are struggling, and we all can finally agree on somethings. COVID sucks, working from home is hard and we predominantly care about each other, despite our differences, at the end of the day. I hope you’re making it through, realize you’re not alone, and don’t accidentally do anything too embarrassing on any screenshares.
Paige Elmore 