Life During the Covid-19 Pandemic: My Thoughts

We were supposed to be at Disney World this week.

The trip had been planned for almost a year. We had everything done except for some last minute details–the rental house was booked, our park tickets were bought, dining reservations were made. I’d spent hours reading Disney blogs, getting up to speed on the latest rides and construction going on at each park. I woke up early for 4 days to reserve the best possible FastPasses for each park day. Everything was coming together, and we were all looking forward to the trip, especially the girls. We had even made a countdown chain together, and Brooklyn and Savannah were enjoying tearing off a link each day as our trip got closer and closer.

And then the whole world basically shut down.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t take the virus seriously at first. Even when it started circulating in Washington state and California, I wasn’t too worried about continuing with our Disney trip like we’d planned. Paw, Rae Rae, and Cici all assured us that they weren’t worried about it either and we’d just use plenty of hand sanitizer and be fine. We thought it might even work out in our favor if people started cancelling their trips and the parks were less crowded than normal for this time of year. But, it quickly became apparent that things were getting serious when all of the major sports leagues started postponing or cancelling their seasons. Universities started closing. Then Disney Land announced they were shutting down for several weeks. So, when Disney World announced later that same day (March 14th) that they would be closing through the end of the month, I wasn’t incredibly shocked based on the way everything else had been playing out. Not shocked, but really disappointed.

Brooklyn and Savannah took it way better than I expected. They didn’t cry or throw a big fit, although they were obviously disappointed. I told them the trip wasn’t cancelled…it was just postponed. We WILL be going; we will just have to wait a while longer than we originally planned. Savannah’s first question was: “Does this mean we have to make the countdown chain EVEN longer??” Bless her heart. I was the only one who cried out of all of us. I think it was mainly just because of all the work I’d put into planning and getting the trip organized. So much work and time spent.

The next evening, March 15th, Governor Ivey announced that all public schools would be closed for the next 3 weeks. And since then, they’ve announced that schools will not meet in person for the rest of the school year. Brooklyn never even got to say goodbye to her friends or her teacher, Ms. Carter, who had just returned that week from being out after surgery for over a month.

Nothing is “normal” right now. Travis is teleworking at home. Brooklyn will be homeschooled for the rest of the school year. Instead of having church services in person, we are meeting on Zoom (a video conferencing app) on Sunday mornings. Restaurants are open only for drive-thru or curbside pickup. Grocery stores are out of toilet paper and many other things. Non-essential businesses are closed. Social distancing, quarantine, and shelter-in-place are the buzz words of the new decade so far. Other than going to the grocery store, I’ve barely left the house over the last 2.5 weeks. Seeing people wearing masks and gloves out in public is becoming more and more common every week. It’s a scene that I never would have imagined even just a month ago.

As of right now, it sounds like the President’s guidelines to slow the spread of COVID-19 will be in place through the end of April, but who knows if they will be extended again. (This will be at least 45 days instead of 15 days like it was originally supposed to be.). So, it seems unlikely life will be back to normal before the end of April, and it could be into May or later before that happens. Nobody knows at this point. I do know that the situation in New York/New Jersey (the biggest hot spot in our country) sounds dire right now from everything I’ve read, and hopefully things won’t get that bad across the rest of the U.S. too.

Here’s the most interesting part of the whole situation for me personally. I was getting more and more stressed out by everything on my calendar between mid-March and the end of May. It was A LOT. The Disney trip, room mom responsibilities, teaching the preschool bible class, hosting and attending other bible studies, Melissa’s bachelorette trip and lingerie shower planning, soccer practices and games, field trips, Savannah’s birthday party, Melissa’s graduation and wedding, and the list goes on. It was so much that I wasn’t sure how I was even going to get through it all.

And then along came COVID-19 and literally wiped almost all of that off of my calendar and to-do list. Almost all of it has been cancelled, postponed, or modified in some way. Life in many ways has come to a screeching halt (other than, you know, taking care of 3 kids on a daily basis…haha)…and quite frankly, I’ve been okay with that. Actually, I’ll go so far as to say I’ve been enjoying it. It took me a couple of days to get over my anger and disappointment at the Disney trip being postponed, but once I got past that, I really feel like I’ve been able to see many of the positives in this strange situation we’re in.

By and large, we are staying home all day, every day with just our little family. We aren’t seeing other family or friends (except for 6 feet away on a rare occasion). We aren’t going anywhere other than to go on a walk or play outside. But I think I’ve spent more quality time with my kids in the last couple of weeks than I probably have in the last several months. We are reading books together, doing puzzles together, baking cookies and brownies, going on walks, playing outside, and all sorts of other things that I really don’t make much time for during “normal life”. Most of the time, I feel like I’m just too busy to do most of those things with my kids. It has been SO nice to just slow down and not be rushing around checking things off of my to-do list. We aren’t living and dying by the school schedule. I don’t have to wake Abigail up from her nap in the afternoon to pick up Brooklyn from school. I’ve really enjoyed having Travis and Brooklyn home during the day. Travis can eat lunch with us as his schedule allows. He’s getting back into running, enjoying cooking breakfast some mornings, and sleeping a little later in the mornings. Brooklyn is getting some extra playtime in with her sisters. We’re watching all sorts of neat “live videos” for kids from the Cincinnati Zoo, James Spann, and the teachers at Mill Creek. We are FaceTiming family and friends, drawing lots of pictures, cleaning out rooms and bagging up old toys/clothes to donate, and spending a lot of time outside enjoying this beautiful spring weather. It’s been refreshing to just slow down and not be so focused on constantly getting things done.

There are so many people out there that are frustrated about being “stuck at home” for this long. I realize that our little family is pretty well insulated from the trouble that many people who are sick or have lost jobs are facing. As of now, we are healthy and can pay our bills like normal. But while quarantine life isn’t rosy and wonderful all the time and there are certainly things about normal life that I miss, I’m trying to enjoy the chance I’ve been given to slow down and breathe a little. When will we get our normal lives back? It’s out of my hands, so my goal is to make the best of the situation that we’re in, make some good memories with my family, and not worry about what will happen in the weeks ahead.

Thoughts to ponder: 1. How can I grow into a better person during this time? 2. How can I encourage or help someone else (from a distance)? 3. What will I learn from this challenge?

I’ll do my best to update again once we are on the other side of this. Hope you all are staying well, staying positive, and making the best of this unique time in our lives.