lockdown

It’s a nerve-wracking time of year for everyone, (not to mention we are still in a pandemic)…add in back to school, a new school, new classes, new teachers, new dress code, and it ends up being a lot. The house has been a powder keg of emotions, raw nerves that flip flop from calm to not calm in a blink. I have practiced my yogic breathing with both boys, smelling fields of flowers and blowing out more birthday candles than I can count.

Personally, I don’t know what to do with my anxiety around sending the kids back to school. Honestly, after the last year and a half of having them home much, if not all of the time, and homeschooling for periods while we continue running our business, I need them to go back to school. Badly. I am not a teacher, and I seriously, seriously tip my hat to all those educators out there – especially the middle school ones who successfully impart knowledge in seas of hormones.

However, we are still in a pandemic, and while we are a fully vaxxed family, I look South to the petri-dish experiment in the States and the rising rates of infection among school-aged kids. This is not good, and it is sure as hell not over. I am fully, fully bracing for the day the school has to suspend a class, a grade, a team for two weeks as they enter self-isolation due to exposure. I realize our isolation plans must remain, and we must be ready to go back into lockdown at a moment’s notice.

The good news (?) is that we are now all well-versed and fairly good at it. We are blessed with the space we need to isolate virtually any family member(s) at any given time, and we continue a stocked pantry.

The bad news is that this whole process has somehow become blasé. The degree of numbness which I greet the prospect of lockdown is terrifying. We, none of us, should be normalizing any of this, but as a matter of survival, everyone has built in a level of acceptance and malaise over it. That is the worst part – to see a collective wall being hit, and limits being reached, still, still with no end in sight. I feel like this is the stall-out, the seventh-inning stretch, the moment where we need to all collectively dig deeper, gather more strength , and find that last vestige of energy to take us through to the goal, the finish line, the end.

All while heading back to school…….

I am unclear how to measure time right now. When did we start physically distancing? Was there a start date or did it slowly creep in? First it was no masks, now it is masks: keeping up with the news cycle is a herculean task in of itself. I find myself breathless and numb every time I check the Canada.ca website for updates. I am naturally anxious, and this pandemic isn’t helping.

Some days are good, some days are bad. Some days are extremely dark. I worry about my partner, who remains in the field (as we have been deemed an essential service) exposing himself to multiple job sites and people daily. He practices physical distancing, he takes all necessary precautions, and washes his hands regularly. However, he is a smoker over 40 who is not particularly healthy. He brings germs home. He exposes himself and our household every time he leaves the house.

But I must let these thoughts go. I choose to focus on my children: we colour Easter eggs, rainbows and hearts for the front window. I organize a “Good Friday Frolic” – a visual Easter egg hunt for the children of the neighbourhood on Friday. We will compete to see how many eggs we can ‘collect’ in our virtual baskets.

As a community, we have come together, apart. I wave to my neighbours each night at the seven o’clock noise making party for the First Responders and Front Line Workers. I check in with my elderly neighbours. I marvel at their openness and honesty when we meet in the lane and (from a good 2 meters + apart) they admit they are afraid, and uncertain. Our WhatsApp chat group has grown to include much of my entire block. We are all learning Zoom.

I focus on each day at a time, and doing what I can to support my children, my husband and myself. I try not to consider the awful consequences of one or both of us getting sick. I withdraw emotionally and shut down frequently. This is not a tidal wave of emotions, but instead a relentless lapping of little moments, highs and lows. Each day is an exhausting sprint through quicksand: the rules are ever-changing, shifting and moving. It shifts from day to day to minute to minute to hour to hour.

Just. Keep. Breathing.

Another Gluten Free Foodie

Cooking & living GF, and learning what it takes to raise a Celiac child

Back to School we Go!