Last night while I was watching Tiger King with Nathan, we received a text message from our superintendent: Pippa’s school (and all Pasadena public schools) will is closed until the end of the school year. There will be distance learning, but the kids will not be returning to their physical classrooms.

My immediate reaction was complicated. There was disbelief, shock, and quite a few thoughts along the lines of  $%#& and *^@)(. It’s early April! Why can’t we wait a couple of weeks before we hit the doomsday button?

But then, after a few minutes of shock! horror! WTF! I felt something new and light and sweet.

Relief.

We have been living with a lot of uncertainty, and the weeks ahead are still filled with an ass shit ton of uncertainty: how many people will get infected? How many will die? Are any of my loved ones going to get sick? But at least the uncertainty about Pippa’s school year has been eliminated.

After about a half hour of relief (which was still mixed with tiny bits of shock, horror, and WTF), I thought to myself, Fuck it, let’s do this.

Let’s do this with humor.

Let’s do this with joy.

And holy shit, let’s have fun!

So that’s my current attitude about The Great 2020 Adventure. My attitude will probably evolve and mutate a thousand more times, but going forward, I’m going to try to have some fun.

Today, for example, I dressed up to go to the grocery store. I wore my new favorite green cardigan, my new favorite necklace, and lip gloss. (I belatedly remembered that makeup can be germy, so I’ll skip the lip gloss next time.) It might sound trivial, but making a three minute effort with my wardrobe really did lift my spirits.

I don’t have much agency in this adventure. I did not decide to close Pasadena schools and “home school” my kids while my husband carries on with his lawyer shenanigans in the master bedroom. I did not decide to restrict our lives to neighborhood walks and the grocery store, and I sure as hell did not decide to limit our contact with loved ones to Facetime and Google Hangouts. No, I did not choose this adventure.

But I do get to choose my attitude about The Great 2020 Adventure, and as of today, I am choosing to let myself have fun. There will be grief, sorrow, frustration, and a whole other slew of messy feelings, but by god, I am going to have fun.

Spoiler alert: I might finally have an excuse to buy the confetti cannon I have always secretly coveted.