Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash
Life is full of unknowns. Finding a rhythm in a house where things are constantly in flux and feel out of control is incredibly difficult and anxiety inducing.
As a planner, I thrive on being able to control as many things as I can. Being able to control the controllable gives me peace of mind. It also allows room for the unknown unknowns. You know, the things that I couldn’t have possibly thought of or planned for no matter how hard I tried.
The most difficult time of this pandemic for me is the overwhelming number of unknown things going on around me. Since the world temporarily closed, I feel like there has been an exponential number of things that are unknown. Between work, kids, and remote school, the list feels unending.
When the entire world was turned upside down because of COVID-19, I began working 100% from home. At first, it was business as usual, but about a week or so in I realized that we wouldn’t be home for a month, it might be two or three. It’s now been six months from home and there is no end in sight. As I started my work from home journey, my four kids also came home from daycare.
The rhythm of my life changed. I no longer had an eight to five job with the regular hustle and bustle where I would run out the door to drop the kids and do dinner, bath, and bedtime at night. Instead my day started with working a few hours first thing in the morning while the kids ate breakfast, a few more at lunch, while I had some help, and then a bit at nap time, and wrapped up my day after 9 p.m. once the kids were asleep.
The blurring of work and home has become an abstract painting. I don’t know where work stops and home begins. When will it all end? It’s just one more unknown to add to the list.
When school started in August for my five-year-old, our household had to find yet another new rhythm. This left me feeling so out of control. He had a hard time adjusting to the new normal of remote school, and my work-life took a back seat. I worked to try and make a new schedule for him using every visual I could find, I chased him around the house to get him to interact with his teacher and his classmates, and worked with him on various assignments. Despite my best efforts he wasn’t taking to this new rhythm and I was ready to quit remote school.
In the meantime, my other three kids in my house were stuck to more or less manage themselves during “school time,” which for two of them meant a lot of screen time and for the baby well.. he just wandered throughout the house talking to himself.
Since life has been so stressful, I’ve thought about sending them back to daycare to get some of my sanity back. But, work has also been somewhat uncertain. The status of my job is just one more thing that has the possibility of changing without my input. The list of unknowns grows.
As a way to control something, I’ve decided to put the kids in swimming lessons. It’s a little piece of something that feels like “normalcy.” I don’t like to over-schedule my kids and with all of Gardner’s appointments we generally don’t go anywhere. And also, what is fully operational these days?
This pandemic has thrown everyone for a loop. While I know that I should feel so fortunate, emotionally it is so draining. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a lot to be thankful for. Currently, I’m employed, my kids are happy, they’ve been very easy going about this change. I think they like being home. I don’t blame them, my house is in disarray from their antics.
I’m ready for this to be over, where we can go back to some sense of “normal.” Life will always have unknowns. This time is unlike any other time in recent history.
I’m reminded that I’m not alone in this. We’re all feeling the long list of unknowns and doing the best we can with the day to day. Although some days it feels like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders I know that eventually it will end and we will begin to make a new normal that doesn’t involve remote school, job uncertainty, and kid chaos. Well… maybe there will always be kid chaos.
I’m ready for the day where I can look back fondly on this time where my kids were able to create a bond with one another like never before. While I am in the thick of it now, I’m trying to look forward to a day when I’ll miss this time.