the tape keeps rolling
I'm not sure I've had time to grieve what's happening.
I've intentionally and necessarily kept busy organizing, adapting, stashing, meal planning, grocery ordering, lesson planning, journaling, setting up a home office, entertaining my kids, planting seeds, digging in the garden, lawyering remotely, setting up Zoom calls, drafting legal guidance, conducting Teams workshops, and avoiding the news. I've mostly been living.
And frankly we have so much to be grateful for out here that I won't allow myself a thought that even feels like a complaint. The result, however, is a harsh and continual form of self-assessment. With every feeling, moment of success, or perceived failure, I am constantly evaluating my performance and my status in quarantine. I am attempting to evaluate myself in this crisis. Am I "good" at it? Do I like being with my kids all day? Would I rather work from home all the time? Am I the kind of person who likes being home in quarantine? Am I the kind of person who does not? Am I the kind of person who organizes activities for her kids or lets them run feral or lets them have too much screen time? Am I the kind of person who takes on big projects right now? Am I the kind of person who watches 90s television when the kids go to bed? (The last two are easy actually: I am both.)
This perpetual state of judgment is exhausting, unhelpful, and basically irrelevant. We are here. Right now. I can't do anything else about it. There is good. There is bad. There is hard. There is comfortable. There is joy. There is anger. I can give myself permission to just feel a feeling and let it pass, without calling my whole life into question, then we keep on going. The Earth keeps spinning. The tape keeps rolling.
I've been reminding myself of this a lot: I can feel, without having to decide. I can struggle, without judgment. I can be happy, and let that be enough. I can become something new, without knowing what it will be (!).
I also use the mantra the tape keeps rolling as I am riding the wave of days and weeks at home with two preschoolers. In the past, our days were full of transitions and hardcuts to work and school and back. It was easy for me to say "We had a bad morning" and try again tonight. Or tomorrow. Or next weekend. Now, since we are together 24/7, we have lots of ups and downs. BIG ups documented on Instagram. BIG downs where I yell at them like I never thought I would. But here's the difference: the tape keeps rolling. We get a million redos. We rage, and then we are still sitting together on the floor. We giggle, and I blink, and they are still here. The tape keeps rolling. It all kind of makes more sense now, in the context of a million moments strung together.
We planted peach trees today, breaking up the clay with shovels and soil amendment and rescuing any precious earthworms who came wriggling out. I staked up the delicate trunks. My son said he hopes they like their new home. I thanked them for the fruit we would enjoy. If they make it, I think I'll always remember that we planted those trees and started our mini-orchard during this time.
How am I doing? I am tired. But I am grateful. I am committed to staying grateful and staying open. I am trying to let the moments and the feelings and the struggle just come and go. To follow my intuition about what small, courageous thing I might start today. What I might write for you. To know this time is special and uncertain and out of my control. To let it change me into something I do not yet know but was always supposed to be.
Maybe it is worth grieving what is lost, maybe I should, but I don't feel sad. And instead of judging myself for that (shouldn't I be irretrievably sad? what about all the people suffering? hello guilt and privilege!), I have permission to feel it and let it be.
Right now I am not sad. Right now the sun is shining. Right now the earth is spinning. The tape keeps rolling.
I've intentionally and necessarily kept busy organizing, adapting, stashing, meal planning, grocery ordering, lesson planning, journaling, setting up a home office, entertaining my kids, planting seeds, digging in the garden, lawyering remotely, setting up Zoom calls, drafting legal guidance, conducting Teams workshops, and avoiding the news. I've mostly been living.
And frankly we have so much to be grateful for out here that I won't allow myself a thought that even feels like a complaint. The result, however, is a harsh and continual form of self-assessment. With every feeling, moment of success, or perceived failure, I am constantly evaluating my performance and my status in quarantine. I am attempting to evaluate myself in this crisis. Am I "good" at it? Do I like being with my kids all day? Would I rather work from home all the time? Am I the kind of person who likes being home in quarantine? Am I the kind of person who does not? Am I the kind of person who organizes activities for her kids or lets them run feral or lets them have too much screen time? Am I the kind of person who takes on big projects right now? Am I the kind of person who watches 90s television when the kids go to bed? (The last two are easy actually: I am both.)
This perpetual state of judgment is exhausting, unhelpful, and basically irrelevant. We are here. Right now. I can't do anything else about it. There is good. There is bad. There is hard. There is comfortable. There is joy. There is anger. I can give myself permission to just feel a feeling and let it pass, without calling my whole life into question, then we keep on going. The Earth keeps spinning. The tape keeps rolling.
I've been reminding myself of this a lot: I can feel, without having to decide. I can struggle, without judgment. I can be happy, and let that be enough. I can become something new, without knowing what it will be (!).
I also use the mantra the tape keeps rolling as I am riding the wave of days and weeks at home with two preschoolers. In the past, our days were full of transitions and hardcuts to work and school and back. It was easy for me to say "We had a bad morning" and try again tonight. Or tomorrow. Or next weekend. Now, since we are together 24/7, we have lots of ups and downs. BIG ups documented on Instagram. BIG downs where I yell at them like I never thought I would. But here's the difference: the tape keeps rolling. We get a million redos. We rage, and then we are still sitting together on the floor. We giggle, and I blink, and they are still here. The tape keeps rolling. It all kind of makes more sense now, in the context of a million moments strung together.
We planted peach trees today, breaking up the clay with shovels and soil amendment and rescuing any precious earthworms who came wriggling out. I staked up the delicate trunks. My son said he hopes they like their new home. I thanked them for the fruit we would enjoy. If they make it, I think I'll always remember that we planted those trees and started our mini-orchard during this time.
How am I doing? I am tired. But I am grateful. I am committed to staying grateful and staying open. I am trying to let the moments and the feelings and the struggle just come and go. To follow my intuition about what small, courageous thing I might start today. What I might write for you. To know this time is special and uncertain and out of my control. To let it change me into something I do not yet know but was always supposed to be.
Maybe it is worth grieving what is lost, maybe I should, but I don't feel sad. And instead of judging myself for that (shouldn't I be irretrievably sad? what about all the people suffering? hello guilt and privilege!), I have permission to feel it and let it be.
Right now I am not sad. Right now the sun is shining. Right now the earth is spinning. The tape keeps rolling.
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