Yesterday I blogged about the uncertainty of Summer 2020. Our trips have been cancelled and summer camp is looking like a bust. I wrote about how I am trying to get comfortable during the uncertainty. Personal growth! Transformation! Yeah! And I am still trying to do that today.
But.
I had another idea.
What if I just accepted the inevitability of the worst case scenario and then made plans for that? What if I harnessed my desire to plan ahead to help me deal with the Covid-19 uncertainty?
So first, I thought about the worst case scenario for Summer 2020:
- Nathan will be back at the office
- The kids will not have any school or camp
- Fun things like the zoo and aquarium will be closed. We might not even have play dates with friends.
Of course, this is not actually the worst case scenario. I am creative. I can think of plenty of shittier situations!
As is so often the case, my challenges (parenting during a pandemic) arise from my blessings (my healthy radiant children). But even though I know I am blessed to have Pippa and Julian, we are all still going a bit crazy after spending over seven weeks sheltering-at-home. Pandemic parenting is no joke.
Since we started sheltering at home, I have been trying to live in the present moment. Today I realized that might be a helpful mindset in ordinary times, but these are not ordinary times. By focusing on the here and now, I have allowed myself to wallow in a big pit of denial. It’s a perverse type of bargaining: if I just enjoy today, and focus on the here and now, then surely this will be over in a few weeks.
But my pre-pandemic mindset is not serving me today. Instead of having my hopes constantly crushed, I need to accept the current reality. My kids will be home with me all summer and our ability to go fun places will be very limited. And also: the 2020-2021 school year will probably involve more distance learning.
That’s a lot for my brain to digest. But it’s also a relief to finally accept the present, albeit shitty, reality. Maybe later I’ll be pleasantly surprised when things are better than I expect.
So that was Step One: I considered and did my best to accept the Summer 2020 Worst Case Scenario.
Then I moved on to Step Two: plan for the Summer 2020 Worst Case Scenario.
I opened a new document on my laptop and wrote a two page list of things we can do to stay happy and busy over the summer. This was comforting. I also wrote down my self-care absolutes: daily journaling; blogging; and one hour for revising my fantasy novel. The kids will be allowed to watch television so long as they leave me alone to write.
Speaking of television: I will be ignoring all the screen time recommendations. This is a pandemic. I am not trying to win some expert’s approval about how much time my kids spend watching Netflix shows.
And: we will make zero efforts at this distance learning bullshit over the summer. We will read when we want to read. That is easy. We are a family that loves to read. If Pippa wants to write, she will write. If Julian wants to practice his ABCs or count, sure, we will do that. But I am not going to enroll the kids in online classes that create more work for me. The coming school year might be full of all sorts of shitty distance learning, so I need as much relaxation over the summer as I can possibly get.