
The quarantine time has been hard for our family. (I wrote this post on grief 1.5 weeks in which is almost laughable now, because I thought it was just going to be a matter of some hard weeks. hahahaha) I heard one person say that we are all in the same storm, but we are all in different boats, and that metaphor resonated with me. Truthfully, we have a rather nice boat, and I'm so thankful. And we haven't sunk yet, so there is that. But, our crew poses some unique challenges, and at times, it has felt like we've had a mutiny on our hands.
I would guess many of us have gained clarity during this time on a great many things in our lives. I've heard some people welcome the slow down and extra time granted as a family. What we've realized is that we have worked hard over the past several years to structure our lives in a way that serves our family, and in most ways, that was working well for us. We had the right amount of activity and most of the support we needed. Until we didn't.
They say it takes a village to raise kids. We need a metroplex.
When everything stopped suddenly, we were left pretty bare. Some kids did fine with the distance learning model, though it was still taxing and not ideal. Other kiddos struggled mightily to work outside of the classroom. I, personally, was never meant to be both the parent and the teacher, especially when parenting well takes every bit of me and then some. When I dropped my kids off for school on March 12th, I had no idea that would be the last time they would all be at the same school.

We've all lost so much, and it feels a little wrapped in trauma for me. We cannot play the "Loss Olympics," because, collectively, no one's life is what we thought it would be at the beginning of the year. We lost the end of Lily's elementary school career, and all the closing ceremonies that would have brought with it. We have LOVED her school experience, and to have it suddenly ripped away was hard. And we loved each of the teachers the other kids had, and it hurts to not finish the year together. When I picked up their stuff from school, I drove away sobbing.
It's like there are now two tracks running in my head all of the time. There is the 2020 we had planned with school and trips and "normal life." And there is the 2020 we are all living in now full of uncertainty. What will school look like in the fall? What sort of travel will be possible when? Will the numbers keep rising indefinitely? The specter of the 2020 that never will be sometimes still haunts me. I think of the things we would have been doing on certain dates, and we now have an all new line up. With a lot more travel insurance should we need to cancel everything once again. And we have masks for whenever we go out into public.

It's been a good reminder that our plans are not really ours. Working to submit myself to the 2020 reality and trusting that it is God's ultimate best for us has been difficult. It is forcing us to make changes that we wouldn't have made otherwise, and I can see that those will probably be better for our family. But they are still largely unknown, and I know how good some of what we will give up is. It's stretching us past breaking points. We are broken. And there are no easy fixes, and I don't know which roads to take at each juncture. That said, we are moving forward, and I am thankful for that.

I feel like I am currently a Grief Scratch and Sniff. Things can look like they are okay on the outside for a little bit, but if the surfaces gets scratched at all, grief comes out. I'm still in counseling, and we are continuing to work to get the help we need. I know that some healing will come with time, but there is also the recognition that this is an extremely hard season. With no end date. I know some people have had it much harder and some people much easier - again - this isn't the Loss Olympics, it's just our experience over here. Speaking of Olympics, there is another thing lost in the vortex of the 2020 that will never be.
There's not a happy wrap up bow to put on all this. It's the messy middle of it all, and I am praying the Lord will continue to grant us wisdom and grace as we walk this version of 2020.