Finding Peace and Simplicity

I miss seeing my boys dressed in their collared school shirts and khaki shorts.

I miss picking up the boys from school and hearing about their day on the ride home.

I miss my parents.

I miss losing myself in a market, marveling at the produce, dreaming up new dishes to create.

I miss a quiet house.

I miss Sunday dates with David.

I miss sitting at a bar and ordering a cocktail.

I miss seeing a movie in a theater.

I miss concerts.

I miss yoga in a crowded, hot stinky studio.

I miss the anticipation when your plane lifts off toward its destination.

I miss ordering drinks and food poolside.

But…I do not miss everything about life before the pandemic.

In some ways, the past five months have had an oddly unexpected thread of familiarity for me. There have been many moments when I have been reminded of those early years of motherhood. Particularly after Rigby’s birth, when I was learning to juggle the emotions of a five year old (and brand new Kindergartener) paired with the raw needs of a newborn and healing from a difficult caesarean section, I felt the sheer necessity of sheltering in place. Required feedings every two hours, too many sleepless nights, a painful recovery and feeling overrun with logistical details, it often felt easier to stay home.

The exhaustion and the beauty in that early season taught me how to better slow down and to pay attention. How to ask David for the support I needed to make it through the day. Yet, I also remember days when it seemed there was nowhere to hide. Days of living in a house that was a bit too small with a child always on my heels asking me to watch or to listen. Ping-ponging back and forth to the needs of my boys to a meal requiring attention to household chores to an aging dog to the logistics of a cross country move. So many days both then and now when I wanted to hide or scream or disappear. On more than one occasion during the last two months of the school year, I wanted to throw in the towel on distance learning, days when I did not sleep well and was exhausted, days when I lost my patience too quickly. With nowhere to retreat to refuel, we’ve had to create space for each other. Sometimes we find the energy and space we need in the outdoors, other times it’s found in the solitude of quiet time.

I have felt our family unit becoming stronger than ever. We are learning how to celebrate the joys of life, even though they may be celebrated in new ways, and also how to address more painful life moments. Because we stick close to home and to each other these days, the boys have seen me in the more raw moments of disappointment or frustration or uncertainty but they have also witnessed David and I working together to navigate and adapt in these situations. As heartbreaking as it may be, our children will experience grave disappointments and failures in their lives, and I hope that showing them how to find hope and persevere in those times, however imperfect, will be an invaluable life lesson.

It is difficult to sit with the loss of control. It is hard to navigate the road of ambivalence, particularly when you have young travelers on the road with you. Yet, I am finding gratitude in the empty days, in time spent away from carpool lines and shuttling from school to after school activities. I am finding the space to live the simple life I have always yearned for.

I wonder. What have the past nearly five months stirred within you? Have you been still enough yet to ask yourself?

xxo.