Happy Lockdown Anniversary!
It’s been a year since my kids last sat in a classroom, a year since Forrest went to work all day. The other day, Willow was sitting at the kitchen table, doing some homework (is it still called homework if all work is done at home?), and I mentioned that I was, in some ways, grateful that we’d all had this year together. Magnolia is going to middle school next year, the twins are getting too old for a lot of the little school rituals we used to have. Gone are the days of wanting mom to chaperone field trips and asking for extra hugs before walking into class.
Willow, perceptive soul that she is, immediately connected it to her own struggle with type 1 diabetes. She said she knew that if we could, we would give her a cure in a heartbeat, even “if it hurt a lot like a surgery.” I nodded, because yes, I absolutely would do that. But she knows that we eat healthier because of her diabetes. We try to do more fun stuff, more unique adventures, because we learned through her journey that life is unpredictable and you should grab good moments with both hands. And diabetes has taught all of us that sometimes you get dealt a bad hand, and it’s ok to be sad and mad about that . Full stop. No pretty bows, no lipstick on a pig. Some things just aren’t fair and there is nothing to do but wait until the outrage passes.
I’m glad she connected the two. It reminded me that in the same way I would never choose to give her diabetes, I don’t yet know the good that will come of it. I certainly know the bad that has come and may still arrive. But the good remains a glorious mystery to me. I also would never have chosen for this year to come. And I am still often outraged by the failures, the selfishness, the sheer incompetence of people who should have spent this year doing a better job than they did. I’ve learned how to wait for that to pass, and it always does.
But the glorious mystery of the good? I can see some of it. I can see it in the small good moments we have grabbed with both hands. A birthday carnival. A weekend trip to tide flats (and a spotted submarine that no one can convince me was a regular boat). Harry Potter read-alouds to kill long winter hours.
I suppose, now that the sun is out and the people I love are getting vaccinated, I am seeing the world more optimistically. Or maybe, like Willow with her struggles, I’m learning how to stop dreaming for what I wish could be and instead exist in a world where I figure out what I can do with what already is.
How zen that sounds from someone who, not four hours ago, had to go out for a walk to let go of the frustrations from yet another tech issue! Maybe that’s the real gift of the lockdown, learning to accept that I am both the mother who can talk about grabbing good things and the mother who yells about the stupid computer not logging on even though we’ve been doing this for a whole damn year.
What have you learned this year? What good moments have you grabbed with both hands?
