Is it just me or does anyone else feel like now, after the world is starting to open back up again and some things are even starting to feel a bit "normal"....now is when I am starting to feel the effects of the last sixteen months? It's a strange thing, and one I can't wrap my mind around. I'm trying to push through, to ignore it in some ways and I'm realizing that might not actually be the best way. Maybe the best way is to sit with it and acknowledge that this last season was hard. Really hard. To acknowledge the losses we suffered so we can walk into this new season ahead stronger as we realize what we have been through, instead of pretending none of it happened.
I know that in a lot of ways I don't have a thing to complain about. My family has stayed healthy. I was able to homeschool my kids - a year I will forever be thankful for. And in the thick of a world-wide pandemic, I gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl. However, in the midst of all the ways that this last year has been a blessing, when I sit with it long enough, there's an underlying sadness as I realize how much we've lost. My son never got to finish Kindergarten. My daughter got her first taste of preschool and couldn't stop talking about it, only to end her preschool career six months after starting it. When we got word that schools were closed, we all thought we'd be back six weeks later which due to our impromptu decision to homeschool this past year, meant that my kids left school that day thinking it would be six weeks when they would see their friends again, and in fact it will be closer to eighteen months. Both of my kids will be at a different school than they were when they left school, so there is a lingering lack of closure that I'm not sure will ever go away.
And here we are. Trying to figure out how to begin again. I'm trying to wrap my mind around what the Fall will be like when my kids actually do go back to school, while also trying to savor this time at home with them before they do. I'm trying to hold my ground through the arguments and fights that inevitably happen when everyone is at home all the days long. To lean in and be present when honestly all I want to do is check out. To constantly choose between housework or getting the kids out of the house. To find cracks of time to focus on something other than cooking all the meals, cleaning all the clothes, and doing it all over again.
I don't actually know how to do it all. I wish I did. But here's what I came here to say. - isn't that the beauty of savoring? I think sometimes we get the idea that it can only be the good things, so when the hard things come, we don't quite know what to do with them. When you have those moments as a family, or with your child that are beautiful....go ahead and savor every second of it. Even better if you have a portrait to hang on the wall that illustrates that connection. But don't for a second forget about the hard times too. Those times that were hard and you chose to lean in and engage and walk away stronger. Those moments of grit that equipped you to become the person you are and the person you are becoming. Those moments are worth savoring too.
I think I wrote this for myself more than for anyone else, but if you are struggling like I am to be creative, to stay motivated, and to look into the future with bright anticipation because your view is still a bit cloudy from the last year....hang in there. Let's sit with it long enough to give it space and time to breathe. And only after we are ready, to run into this next season with reckless abandon-because I'm confident there are some pretty great things in store.