twenty five days in

Before very recently, I got pretty excited if our family had a free night together. Between Ben’s work travel and all of the stuff that makes up life with four kids, it was incredibly rare to have an evening where we could even make a thirty minute dinner with all six of us together a reality.

Today marked day twenty five that we’ve been isolated in our house together. Just us. No friends over. No work travel. No meetings. No sports practices. No distractions. Nothing but time together. I’ve had more hours of conversation with my kids over the past month than if you combined the six months prior.

Though it feels wrong to say because I certainly didn’t pray for all of this time with my family to come as a result of a global pandemic, this weird experience of forced time together is like an answered prayer for me.

Because of this, I feel this tremendous pressure to make the most of this time, to make this moment in time something my kids can look back on maybe not fondly, but without thinking it was the worst time ever. When they look back on this, my hope is that they remember all of the silliness and play and meals together and nightly walks. That they remember hours of rock band and pong in the garage and remember learning together at a table sitting in the middle of the living room. That they remember a slower pace and that they think that it, almost, felt like the strangest vacation they’d ever had.

This week all of this self-imposed pressure is not serving me well because I’m learning that it’s hard to make lemonade out of these lemons. This isn't really a vacation. We are all missing our regular life. The kids are pretty sad to hear that they will not be returning to school this year (announced today). They are missing their friends and their activities. This is hard for them and they are feeling all the feelings.

I, too, am missing life as I knew it. I am finding it hard to balance my need for some personal space with my desire to make things smooth for my kids. I am trying to be all the things to all of the people in the house, even if it is at the expense of my own need for a little time to myself.

This week the reality has set in that it may be a while before life gets back to normal.