Together and Apart

My family.

Hubby is not working due to COVID.

Boys are up ALL NIGHT playing video games and handing in the essential assignments so that we do not get emails from their teachers.

This morning I woke up earlier to get a head start on work.  The boys were up.  Frazzled, no sleep and the oldest worried that he had told his teacher NO I can't pick up my text books from school, only to realize that he could because he had gotten the days wrong.  Who can fault him?  I thought today was Monday and I work all week (even on the weekends- maybe that's where the confusion comes from).

I tried to find a way to recall the email he sent for one hour and finally had to give up.  Gmail does not have a recall function.  It has a recall per email, every email, i.e. before you send this email I will give you one minute to change your mind.  That's it, a timed recall.  This rarely works for anyone.  

The fifteen year-old said, "I did it on Outlook," but I had very clearly determined it was Gmail transferred to Outlook.

And bless his heart he said, "Thank you Mama for trying."

I love these children, these teenagers, more than anything, more than myself.

I went to give my son a hug after he came back from getting his stuff from school - only one child was allowed to get in at one time to pick up their things.

And my son said, "Hold on, Mama, I have to wash my hands first."

My kids, our kids, are not perfect, they use some pretty not that nice language while they play their video games and they cross socially acceptable lines (without knowing the consequences) when they say certain things, but I do what I always do and I let them know what is okay and what is not okay.  They may not change overnight.  Nothing does and peer pressure is real.  Kids say a lot of things and they have no filter.  They haven't started the Big Lie of pretending to be someone they are not.  I have good kids.  Beautiful kids.

And they have saved me.  They have saved me on more than many occasions.

I want to be around for them for as long as they are!

I want to be there when they get their first job, first girlfriend (kind of), first everything...

They are both soon to be young adults and they are not perfect.  I am not perfect.  My husband is not perfect (he may disagree... :-) )

When my boys were little,  I have to be honest there were some grand stand owns between us, between myself and a toddler.  I never would have believed I would have been that person.   The person that lost their shit, that yelled and they were kids, only kids.  I was so hard on myself.  I still haven't fully forgiven myself.

But life is never how we think it should be.  People are not always what they think we should be.

We are.  We are love.  My heart sinks into my abdomen, my heart raises up into my brain and shakes back and forth for these children.  LOVE.  SO MUCH LOVE.

At the end of everything.  During this Pandemic we have dinners together.  This is the beginning.  This is something I am going to do my darndest to keep going.

Even though we are all together in the house, we don't see each other because we are all on different schedules, but we are not the same schedule for dinner.  I don't fight them to get their sleep schedules in order.  They will figure it out.

And really when their Mama sleeps till 4pm on Saturdays.  No word of a lie.  Well,  I've worked hard all week, and so have all of they, fighting bosses, capturing cities and creating worlds.

We are all in this together.

Sandra XXOO

The Great Pause- Faith and Fear

People are calling it the Great Pause, for some yes and for others no, in the literal sense of pausing.  However in the metaphorical sense, most definitely.  Every one has been touched by COVID-19 in some way.

Some are still working and worrying for their lives.

Some, like me, are working from home and finding it, and I'm embarrassed to say, overwhelming. I always knew I had a lot of work flowing my way, landing on my proverbial desk, but somehow when that lands in the middle of a Pandemic while many are not working and you can't leave your office for the day, but stare at through the tiny slits in the corners of your eyes as you try and sleep...

My desk is beside my bed.  During the day I have lots of light, I usually shower in the mornings and even put make-up on, you never know when someone is going to decide to video conference you!

I haven't been out today, yesterday I went out only because I hadn't been out the day before.  I am becoming more and more immobilized, afraid.  But, by all accounts, many countries, including mine (Canada) appear to be flattening the curve as they say.  But, I am still afraid of so many things.  Especially the virus.

I wrote this poem:

Faith and Fear

At some point tears
will run from us.
Catch, oh please,
do not catch the disease.

Fear

Faith

Someone very smart
told me just make sure Faith
tips the balance.
Even a little.

The air is clear.
The ocean is quieter.
Deer and Dolphins
Roam where they
haven't before.

For now some
of us can nap,
others cry, and
it's all okay. We're
just roaming
where we haven't
been before.  Faith.

Sandra XXOO

Single Lane.

We are all in the single lane, at home with our families, or alone, or with our partners, whomever and wherever we happened to end up when the order was sent out.

Stay at home.

I love staying at home.  Except when I have to stay at home.  Quite the rebel, but I think we are all like that.

Freedom seekers.

And yet this matters so much that we do stay home so that we can create the Freedom to live on with our families and our friends.

So many cannot say that.  Too much death and despair, hopelessness and fear has overcome all of us. Not always the death.  Maybe not the despair.

But I challenge anyone looking for toilet paper after the third empty store not to shed a few tears.

Toilet Paper.

Toilet Paper.

And now yeast and flour.

Everyone who grew up watching Little House on the Prairie, like I did wants to make their own bread.

My grocery associate called me when the yeast came in, I thought I might go too far if I asked him to call me when the toilet paper came in.  But he called (for the yeast) and that phone call was one of the sweetest, except the one from my parents, that I have received this whole pandemic.

Pandemic.

I have a mask that I found in one of my old Emergency/Disaster kits.  It is a respirator mask, not the kind the healthcare workers would wear, but maybe something a painter might don?  I'm not sure.  I'm pretty sure I look ridiculous in it  But I don't care.  If someone is protected from me, because that's what it is all about, then, yes, I will wear it.  I might be silent carrier, I mean, I hope not, but this is what we are hearing. You never know who has it.

I stopped drinking more than sips of wine as soon as the orders to stay home were advised.  Maybe it is like when the kids were little, you never know when you might have to pick up that disaster kit and run.  That would be no fun on a hangover. (When the kids were small we didn't drink in case we had to take them to emergency or the doctor, or if they needed us in the night)

Right now I am ready for this to be over.  But that is not happening any time soon.  I am lucky that I a still working (from home).  My husband is not.  The kids play games and have recently started on line school.  We make homemade meals daily, and usually eat together as a family.  That didn't happen with as much regularity as it is happening now.

I love our dinners.

I love our talks.

I hope there is some way to merge, when we come out of this, the old way with this new weird and strange way. The best of both worlds.  In the single lane.

Please stay safe.

Stay strong.

We are in the thick of it, but we are stronger than we think (it's true even though I always felt resistance to that phrase).

We are a world together.  Hoping to love those we love and play with those we want to play.   Simple asks in a world where nothing, right now, is more simple than staying home.

Love to all.

Sandra XXOO