Friday, September 11, 2020…10:52am
The end of week 26. Half of a year.
26 weeks of doing everything we can to stay healthy. 26 weeks of limiting our time out in the world as a way of helping to keep other people safe and healthy. 26 weeks of constant pivots and readjustment. 26 weeks of second guessing everything and feeling like there are no right decisions. 26 weeks of being thankful the virus has not yet affected my extended family and friends. 26 weeks of watching the chasm widen between people trying to do what’s best for the common good and people believing personal liberties outweigh common good. 26 weeks of WTF and trying to remember a day will come when this is all a memory. 26 weeks where it has become increasingly exhausting to be hope and to find hope in what feels like a hopeless world.
This week from a societal perspective has been challenges piled on top of challenges – record breaking heat in California, wildfires are raging up and down the entire West Coast, unemployment and mental health concerns have been central themes in conversations I’ve had with friends all over the country, guidance and restrictions on Halloween activities released by the Los Angeles County department of health were well intentioned from a public health perspective but resulted in my Facebook feed filling up with angst and outrage over the “cancelling of Halloween.” The world around us is literally and figuratively on fire.
Quite simply, it’s a shit show out there. But inside our house, it’s been a fairly calm and easy week – distance learning is going great, my husband and I were able to get away last weekend to recharge, we’re all healthy. That’s not to say it’s all rainbows and puppies – real life in our house still includes average teenage turmoil amped up by one of the two teens living with anxiety and depression, four people with vastly different needs for togetherness vs alone time, work demands for adults and academic demands for kids, and a physical space that feels smaller by the day – but in balance, it’s been an easy week in our home.
If this strange time has taught me anything, it’s to find gratitude in the little things and hope hidden in the chaos. The world may be burning down around us, but inside our little house we are all okay and for today that is enough.
Be well my friends.
We're All A Little Broken 