The Year We Stayed Home
Every December 26th, I am itching to take the Christmas decorations down. On the twenty-fifth, the Christmas tree is a stunning token of warmth and a cozy season, but on the twenty-sixth it becomes a shedding carcass taking up space in my living room. I am eager to find homes for the new toys and remove all traces of Christmas to make room for the new year. But this year? I let everything linger until New Year’s Eve because we needed the magic to hold out just a little bit longer.
The calendar might start over at midnight tonight, but 2021 isn’t coming to save us. We are still in the midst of a poorly handled pandemic and we are still divided over a tumultuous election. Our systems are still so broken that corporations are thriving and ordinary people are wondering how they can support their children’s education and also pay the bills. We’ve lost loved ones and missed out on celebrations with family and have been confined to our homes in the name of safety. This year has put most of our lives on pause as we scramble to adapt and figure out how the hell to function with no definitive end in sight.
There's been a general consensus that this year is a dumpster fire and a train wreck we need far, far behind us – but all year long I’ve been pondering what we’re going to walk away with after this. None of us are getting out of this year unchanged – this is the year that will live in our bones forever. The year that will eventually be reduced to our death tolls and memes about zoom calls, masks, and the time when toilet paper became our local currency. And while we were immediately bombarded with messages that we’re all in this together, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Some of us were deemed essential workers – whether that meant fighting on the front lines or serving fast food and some of us were asked to make an office from home. Some of us lost our incomes and livelihood altogether. Some of us were crippled with loneliness while others were quickly relegated to stand in as our children’s teachers and their sole providers of entertainment. Some of us listened to science while some of us continued gathering in hoards and licking one another. Some of us lost jobs, medical insurance, and hope while some of us lived pretty comfortably with only boredom to complain about. To say we’re all in this together is insulting to those for whom this year has been the truest sense of hell.
But we’re all coming out of this differently – there’s no way around it. And when the reminiscing begins someday, I want to remember the details and crevices in between Tiger King and the sourdough starters – I want to remember the ugly, the mundane, and the beautiful.
When the governor announced the six-week shutdown order on March 13th, students pulled the fire alarm six times that day. There is no one braver than a middle school student with no fear of consequences. The next day, we awoke to our first and only snow day of the year and we immediately launched into unfamiliar, adrenaline filled ambitions – what would we do with this six weeks? This was unchartered – Barrett’s work shut down immediately meaning we were down an income. School told us to hold tight while an emergency plan was put into place. We felt a mix of dread, panic, but also? Exhilaration. This was an unprecedented, novel opportunity – a gift, it almost seemed. When would we be asked, nay, told to stay home under one roof with all of us together? We’d never spent this much uninterrupted time together, not ever. This could be the time we would never get back, and for only six weeks? We could do it. And then the messages came flooding in reminding us to capitalize on this time and to make the bread and learn the language.
Promptly ignoring everything I’d ever worked through in therapy, I bought into it: make all the memories, write that book, pick up that guitar and get those abs. I swiftly launched into my adrenaline-fueled new role as stay at home mom/home school teacher/virtual educator/closet organizer/professional dog walker/athlete in training and scholar of all hobbies. I immediately made the lists and curated the creative homeschool lesson plans and made the empanadas from scratch. They were delicious by the way.
And naturally, it lasted about four days.
As it quickly became clear that this stay at home order would not be a mere six weeks, the Groundhog-esque nature of each day set in and the attempts at productivity dissipated. The novelty of homeschool and zoom classes for my children wore off quickly and I found myself pondering new Zoom etiquette. When you’re attending a preschool zoom with your 3-year-old and he wanders off, how long must you stay by yourself singing about the weather and learning about ocean life? Why is it that your children wait until you are unmuted in a class to scream at one another about who gets the big, black crayon?
I did manage to complete three cat puzzles and catch up on my extensive research of Top Chef contestants, so no one can declare it time wasted. But as novelty wore off and the fresh hell of remote learning reared up, I made peace with the fact that working from home with young kids and no outside reprieve is not supposed to be easy. Creating an online education system from scratch required educators to reinvent the wheel once again and work harder than they ever had before. We were never meant to work from home and educate our kids simultaneously while also preparing the 8,642 meals everyone eats. When did kids start eating so much!? Removing the expectations gave way for a sense of peace and relief as we focused on getting through the days as best we could.
But then that peace started giving way to an insurmountable sadness that started to seep in. I cried for people who were dying and losing their families. I cried for students and their families who had too much on their plates to attempt school. I lost it in a bagel shop the day Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. I raged about Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and our horrific systems. And sometimes I cried because I missed friends and coffee shops. I was filled with anxiety about my own children – would this damage them? Would Ben know how to interact with other kids when we got out of this? I desperately tried to create a sense of calm as Zoe’s nightmares increased. My overwhelming feelings of failure crept in as students struggled and Disney Plus became a co-parent.
And for months we navigated this bizarre hybrid of work, homeschool, and isolation. This strange braid of emotions sat poised beneath the surface, any one of them ready to bubble over on a whim. Any particular day, any particular minute oozed gratitude, boredom, family bonding, family loathing, motivation, inspiration, depression, anger, contentment, peacefulness, creativity and lethargy. Most of my journal entries from this period have started with either: I’m filled with gratitude and inspiration or I’m just so damn sad. The day’s activities reflected much of the same. Some days started with educational scavenger hunts and ricotta pancakes while other days I overslept and my kids perfected their culinary masterpiece of peanut butter sprinkle hot dog buns. Patent pending.
But in the midst of the family time, boredom, sadness, and bouts of productivity, there was time. Time I hadn’t experienced, well, ever. Time I hadn’t known how desperately I needed. There were no more piano lessons to rush to or happy hours to squeeze in or school drop offs and pick ups. And while this time didn’t result in the novel I wanted to write or the organized pantry I envisioned, it meant a lot more. It meant time to sit with the questions that I usually breeze through on the way to work and swear I’ll think about someday, eventually, once I just survive this current phase of life. And then that phase of life morphs seamlessly into the next, and I haven’t paused to breathe and wonder if this is the life you’d pick out for myself. There was finally space to dream. Sitting together each night, cross-legged on the couch in our sweatpants, we made plans we're excited about whenever the world permits.
It meant time to look around and really pay attention to the things going on in the world; the things I had ranted about in the shower for years but had rarely followed up with action. With no other distractions, action became the only possible option. Time for calls to be made, petitions to be signed, and time to sit with the uncomfortable, sticky questions about complicity. How many things had been in my peripheral vision that I continued to push further to the side because life was busy? This year meant I could no longer ignore or rationalize injustices happening right in front of me.
And it meant time to smell the proverbial roses when they presented themselves. I found myself laying in bed with my kids after they fell asleep to listen to the rhythm of their breathing. We've baked and done puzzles and played with dolls for more hours than I'd ever done before. I’ve been drinking my tea while it’s still hot. Walks in nature have taken on a whole new level of healing. Have fall colors ever been this vibrant? How had I never known that Ted Mosby is in a band and that it's AWESOME*? And for all the greed and toxicity in leadership, people were so lovingly looking out for one another. Our neighbor went door to door with paper towels and toilet paper. Donations to food banks are at an all time high, more letters are being sent, and we are pausing to look at and focus on what matters most. When we have the time to pay attention, a hell of a lot of beauty pops up all around us.
It took me about six months to recognize that 2020, quarantine, lockdown, whatever you want to call it was never meant to be categorized neatly in a box. This year was feisty; how could we ever classify her as one thing? And the moment I came to grips with that, it's become easier to ride this out. This year was hard, healing, and everything in between. And I'm sick to my gut about the anguish this year has caused on a global scale, but I’ve also never known my family or myself on this level before and I don’t want to give that back.
We aren’t getting out of here the same. There is no normal to back to. We’re different now. And while I’m ready to connect with people that never lived inside my womb and to resume some shred of normalcy, I’m thankful that 2020 has changed the trajectory. May we all start trekking the long road to revamping our inequitable, white-supremacy driven systems. May we stop wearing over-commitment and exhaustion like badges of honor. May we savor the hell out of face to face chats and leisurely walks in nature and come out of this like bears after hibernation ready to enjoy the outside world.
*** They're called Radner and Lee and Barrett has said he physically cannot listen to them one more time.