Here’s what we have: me, 10 months of Covid, wearing a mask on a worn-out pair of ears with three opening presents boys under a pair of propped-up feet. The clock reads 3am. It is quiet, cozy, warm. Perfect conditions for sleeping – unless, of course, you are not. (I am not.)
The insomnia haze, for me, began just weeks into quarantine and stretched along until said year turns, oh 2021-ish? As such, there are entire 3-month spans in which I cannot remember the word for ketchup. I’m learning not to fight it, not to resent the bleary adjustment period where it often takes quadruple the time to find a thought, lasso it, and bring it to a page or two. Writing the grocery list feels hard enough; writing much else? Nearly impossible.
Still, my weekly journaling practice is going strong, and every now and then I find myself some of Martin's sticky notes – tucked into my car console, the kitchen drawer, my nightstand. My aim is simply to remember this season of raising kids and raising myself. I know these are the good days; I feel it somewhere in my bones. But I don’t always see them, and I want to.
I want to see what I tossed into my omelette, what the kids sang in the car, which titles I picked up on Amazon when I ran around too distracted to recognize the gravity of a beautifully ordinary life.
What I’m saying is this: I’ve missed it here.
In a month or so, there will be a two-part vaccinated nurse in our midst – a fact I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around. This was not an expected vaccination, and yet: what are expectations if not plans designed for foiling? Martin and I were in such immediate disbelief we ran through 5-6 emails in the span of a day.
And then, just as suddenly: joy.
Ever since, we’ve been rearranging long-term plans and bedrooms, folding hand-me-down t-shirts to send into shared twin-dom (Jax & Grey) drawers, foraging the internet for an avalanche airbag we’d perchance forgotten to see a month ago. (No such luck.) My mind, in minutes, dithers between “Don’t worry; vaccines are so safe!” and “OMG what if we get sick from the second-dose?”
(In writing this, it’s clear to me that my logic skills have been stored somewhere in the depths of my no-longer-staying on my waist jeans size.)
We’re making room, all of us, at differing paces. Morgen’s campaigning to be full-time HVAC and Official Managing Consultant, taking odd jobs here and there to buy his own food and rent. Max simply wanted the assurance that the (new) used washer & dryer we gave him for Christmas will be able to fit in their apartment. I wouldn’t necessarily call him excited, not at this juncture, but there was a moment last week in which he proudly proclaimed: I love this washer more than the laundromat!
So, we’re getting there.
The boys are 25, 21, 17 and 8 now – signing up for their own classes, making their own plans. No longer are we in the land of locked doorknobs or face-down wailing in grocery check out lines. Given my predisposed inability to multitask, this feels like nothing short of divine timing. Two children exiting stage left into a world of perceived independence; one more entering just long enough to sign up for the scholarships.
The year itself has been difficult, much in the way all pandemics can be I suppose when your life becomes no longer your own, when it’s been eight months since you’ve tangoed with a dance partner, when you’re no spring chicken anymore. But I’m getting by with a few honorable mentions – couch reading, salt-water spray, and a newly-perfected creamed spinach recipe.
All else is all else: Helping Divy with science fair problems over heaping breakfasts of muesli bowls. Fueling Markus' continued obsession with hockey and the story of his injured shoulder. Planting basil in the harvest garden, photographing rainbow spectrometer's all afternoon. Pulling out face masks from the washer. There are taekwondo classes to be logged in-to, hockey games to be practiced for maybe starting next week, airbags to return, groceries to procure.
The good days, is what I mean.
