Just revisited this post which was almost exactly a year ago. The longest and shortest year of my life. Time is flying and crawling. Was then and still is. I find it remarkable that at the end of March 2020 I described hope. I feel hope now and it feels new. I do feel like I’m hitting the wall these last few weeks – I don’t know precisely why, but probably the accumulation of these fast-and-slow weeks. Anyway. No neat message. Nothing specific to say. All of that is still true. But, also, still here. And hoping you are too.
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I am still here. I hope you are too. This is a strange, echoing, eerie time, one of lamentation and hope, one of fear and frustration, one that is, for me, about most of all a profound confrontation with the unknown. I really don’t have anything to say. But I want to be here. I’m hungrily devouring anything anyone’s sharing about their experience of this time out of time. I’m curious about what you’re feeling, thinking, reading, eating. We are all at home, and I am certain that in the future one of the themes of writing about this time will be empty nesters suddenly finding themselves with full nests again.
That is surely the silver lining of this, if there is one: prodigious amounts of family time. Both Grace and Whit have classes most days (but not all) and they are doing a good job managing their schedules. I am adamantly not a homeschooler and I feel grateful that they are old enough to handle this themselves. Both Matt and I are working at home. I quipped in the first week that I must be one of the only people experiencing this quarantine as MORE people in their office. I have three other people in my office all day, every day. It’s noisier and messier than I’m used to. We are going through food and laundry at a record pace.
And we are so replete with blessings, I know that. There are more ways than I can possibly count that this could be worse. So far the four of us, and my mother, who lives nearby and with whom we are practicing social distancing but still in close touch, are all safe. We are able to work from here. I am so, so lucky. We all know it. I even had a moment last week of knowledge that there will come a time when I miss these days. I told Matt and about it and he laughed at me because it was such a classic thing to say. That’s just how I live in this world: shadowed always by the anticipation of loss and of missing. But I tried to channel that into being here now.
It’s not easy. I feel a huge amount of fear. What does this mean, in every way? What will the world look like “after”? Will there even BE an after? I am buoyed by my close friends and family and actually feel MORE in touch with a lot of people than I have in a long time. But every day, multiple times a day, the questions start to come. They wake me up in the middle of the night. There is so much that is unknown, and that’s always been the hardest thing for me.
So I don’t have a neat message here. I don’t have anything specific I want to say. I would love to hear what’s on your mind, your kindle, your TV, your heart, your table. I really would. Stay safe. Stay home.
