This first week of school sort of went down as I expected. Chaotically! My husband always goes to a handball tournament over Labor Day weekend. He usually leaves the Wednesday before and returns home late on the following Monday. Which also leaves me home alone as a “single parent” during the first week of school. And this year we have a dog to add into the scheduling tetris. And this year was the return of students to in person schooling with the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus rearing its ugly head. And 0% of the student population in my children’s school is vaccinated (they are all under the age of 12).
You know this is a recipe for disaster.
My husband left late Wednesday morning as planned and by about noon that day I got the message that school would be closing early due to impending storms. Okay. Pivot.
I actually predicted it when I saw earlier in the morning that other school districts were making similar announcements. I was mentally prepared and had already begun adjusting my schedule — and my frame of mind.
I did the grocery shopping early. The dog got an especially early afternoon walk, and we made it home before the rain started. The kids built forts in the basement in case the storm got bad. The storms actually missed our neighborhood almost entirely. Some rain, a little wind, but nothing major. Places not that far from us had some very serious flooding and a tornado was confirmed about 40 minutes from us that did a great deal of damage.
Yes, I had other plans for that day. No, I didn’t get any of them done, but we got really lucky. We were safe and healthy and alive (perspective!).
Fast forward to Thursday (day 4 of school and day 2 of my husband’s absence). My daughter woke up with a fever. A low grade fever, and she claimed to feel okay, but she did seem tired. No school for her. And oh yes, fever is a sign of Covid. Guess what, she needed a negative Covid test result before she could return to school (in addition to being 24 hours fever free). Pivot.
Oh, but wait. My son was theoretically also exposed to whatever my daughter had. He had to be quarantined too. Two kids, home from school on day 4 of in person schooling after an unplanned early release day, and I had to figure out where to get them Covid tested. Pivot.
Not only did I have to pivot and shift my own perspective and expectations, but the kids had to do the same. My son was VERY upset about missing school, especially since he wasn’t sick. It took him the length of our morning dog walk and a lot of screaming and kicking trees to get the anger out of his system before he could wrap his brain around his new set of circumstances. And that’s okay. It’s okay to have the feelings and not be all sunshine and roses immediately. Sometimes it takes a litttle time to process. To accept what is, come up with a new plan, and move forward. Find some perspective and bounce back (resiliency!).
Day 5 of school, still no test results. Both kids had to stay home again. Quarantined. Pivot.
Saturday. Day 4 of my husband’s absence and we finally had test results (negative!). Okay, there’s a bright side — we can still go to the pool for the next 3 days. And I managed to get some nagging tasks and projects done around the house. I didn’t get the other work done I had planned on those first three days, but at least I was somewhat productive in ways I didn’t even expect (perspective).
Skip ahead to Monday. 7:00pm. I got a text from my husband saying they had hit some traffic but his ETA was still around 7:30. Great. I had already counted him out for that day and told the kids not to expect to see him, so no biggie.
AHA, but wait. You don’t think it ends there do you??
At 7:24 I got a phone call from my husband. Uh oh. He never calls me. Like never. If we call each other, it’s serious. He proceeds to tell me that another handball player just let him know that he’s not feeling so good. Achy. Tired. Congested. Could be Covid. PIVOT!
Mind you, he’s telling me this as he is pulling into the driveway and needs to know what we are going to do.
I barely took a second to process what he was saying before we decided he had to go to a hotel. There was no way on earth I was going to risk the kids getting Covid, and miss even more school. Not after the week I’d already had. I didn’t let him come in the house and the kids (who were DYING to see him) got to talk to him for about 3 minutes through an upstairs window. Pivot.
Tuesday, and now unexpectedly day 7 of being alone with the kids. I was lucky enough to be able to send them to a day camp (THANK YOU MUSA!). And while I was able to begin getting caught up on all of my work, one day wasn’t going to be enough. AND I still had to figure out what to do with my husband. Of course his friend got Covid tested, as did my husband, but we didn’t have results yet.
I let him come back home, but he basically had to live in his office and the downstairs bathroom. If he left the house we sanitized all the door handles and surfaces he had to touch to get in and out. We wore masks. I brought him all of his food. And we waited for test results. He was home, but really I was still alone with the kids, AND I had another mouth to feed.
By this point I think I had about reached my limit. I was trying to pause and breathe. I was trying to find perspective. I was trying to be resilient and strong. But I was at my breaking point.
I was angry. I was exhausted. I was tired. I was frustrated. I was having all of these feelings and emotions and I was trying so hard not to. I wanted to just breathe and find stillness and clarity. I wanted to find perspective and see the good parts, see how lucky I was. Find the silver lining. I wanted to move through it all with grace but I just couldn’t.
And it’s funny because I always tell my kids that it’s okay to have all the feelings. To be angry or upset about something. They just need to express that anger or frustration in an appropriate way (meaning you cannot cause harm to yourself, others, or property). I give them options for ways to release their anger (like when I told my son to pick some large trees on that walk and practice his TaeKwonDo kicks!). Sometimes they make good choices. Sometimes they don’t. It’s a learning process
And as I look back on it now, my head coming out of the fog, I realize that it was okay for me to have all those feelings too. It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be exhausted. It’s okay to be tired. AND it’s okay to give yourself grace and time, and to process whatever those emotions are. Those emotions are your truth. They are real and they are raw and they are messy and they are sticky. It’s HOW you respond to all of hose things while you are processing them that matters.
I’m sure I was short-tempered with the kids. I was definitely less than empathetic about my husband’s situation. I know I did not have kind and loving thoughts about myself for either of those things.
I’m also sure that I saw this tumultous start to the school year coming. I planned for this. I expected this. I had the tools in place and was prepared for the unexpected. Ready to pivot. Ready to change course. The whole family was ready.
Does that mean we enjoyed the process? No. Does that mean we did it seamlessly? Still no.
But, we paused. We took a breath. We dug deep into our tool boxes and found some perspective. And, with a little time and a little grace, we were all able to change our mindsets and find a new way forward without ending up in a puddle on the floor, paralyzed, unable to begin again on a new path. We did not remain stuck in the transtion. We bounced back again and again and showed each other how resilient we can be.
