Words are powerful. They are even (dare I say it?) magical. Yes, damnit, I dare say it:

During conversations and on social media, I have been referring to recent events as “the shit storm,” “the freaking pandemic,” and “the social distancing shit show.” Sometimes I added even more colorful language to those descriptions. I needed to swear and complain in order to wrap my brain around this experience.

But as of yesterday, I have a new name for sheltering-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic: The Great 2020 Adventure. (Or, if I’m lazy or pithy, “the adventure.”) (And if you are wondering, when has Courtney ever felt ‘pithy‘, I can assure you it has happened at least once or twice.) (It always makes me so happy when I have an excuse to use the word “pithy.)

“Adventure” is one of my magic words. I did not just call my memoir Adventures with Postpartum Depression because that sounded cute. I consciously chose that title because the word “adventure” makes me feel like an empowered bad ass.

When I was first diagnosed with postpartum depression, I thought of it purely as a mental illness – because hey-o, it is a mental illness! That’s why I took Zoloft! And still have a psychiatrist! But when I thought about PPD as a mental illness, and nothing more, I felt like a victim and patient – passive roles that made me feel weak and pathetic.

I started writing my memoir as part of my healing journey; and that made me think about my illness as an adventure; which meant I was not just a pathetic patient… I was a bad ass on an adventure! A warrior! I do not remember the exact day that I came up with the title for my memoir, but I do know that decision was a major turning point in my recovery. I went from “passive recipient of medical care” to “heroine of my adventure” and being a heroine feels about 10,000 times better than being a passive recipient.

So that is what I am consciously doing now. When I referred to the current crisis as a “shit storm,” I felt like a victim of circumstances beyond my control. And yeah, there are certainly an abundance of circumstances currently beyond my control.

But isn’t that always the case?

I don’t control the weather or seasons. I don’t control my kids’ moods. I don’t control the way the stranger in the car behind me drives on the freeway. Every day, I encounter hundreds of little details that are beyond my control.

Except my mindset. Every moment of every day, I get to be the master of my mindset. From here on out, I am done with feeling like a victim lost in a shit storm. I am activating Adventure Mode and abandoning all the swear-y phrases that I have been using to describe the past three weeks of my life.

Welcome to The Great 2020 Adventure.

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.

Every day is weird and so far beyond my comfort zone, I’m not even certain I have a comfort zone anymore. Remember that place? I have gotten so used to Corona Land, it will be weird when I get to pack school lunches again and can get all the things on my shopping list easily (instead of writing “meat” and sacrificing a roll of toilet paper to the grocery gods).

But I’m in good company. Pretty much everyone I know is living with this constant uncertainty. We are all making up this shit as we go.

Here in Pasadena, we are the middle of Week 3 without school. It’s actually spring break for my kids, and I am loving the break from distance learning.

So far, we have managed to maintain bedtime. (Excuse me while I go knock on every piece of wood in the house!) The kids go to bed at 7:30. Nathan sings the usual lullabies; I tell a version of the Cloud Story that I started telling the kids last summer. I give them kisses and close their door. Then the kids make a lot of strange noises — I’m convinced someone has somehow managed to hide a wrecking ball under their bed — and after about ten minutes of the usual resistance, they succumb to the land of nod.

For us, bedtime must be maintained, but other aspects of parenting are not so clear. The kids know there is a Corona virus (Pippa heard about it at school from teachers and classmates). They know school is cancelled and that they are also not going back for at least another month (probably longer…) They know they can’t see their friends and that we don’t know when the hell we can have Pippa’s birthday party. That’s a lot of reality for a seven year old and four and a half year old.

As much as I am struggling with the uncertainty, they are struggling even more. I have to lower my expectations for my kids because holy shit, there’s a pandemic. They miss their grandparents, their schools, their friends and their teachers. So many comforts and routines have been yanked away with zero warning. Of course they are going to have Crazy Scary Feelings and find new ways to misbehave.

They are fighting a little more than usual, crying more easily, and testing the rules. So here’s my dilemma: I know I have to lower my expectations, but does that mean I let the kids misbehave without consequence?

Part of me thinks I should let misdeeds slide — hello! pandemic! — but then I think: if all the boundaries evaporate, and the kids can draw on the furniture (Julian!) and run with scissors (Pippa! WTF?!), and we descend into ANARCHY, isn’t that even scarier for the kids? If we let the kids destroy the house and eat dessert for every meal, then we are sending the message, Everything is fucked so why bother?

That’s why, even though my kids need extra love, I am still enforcing the rules. Both kids have been sent to time out since we started sheltering at home, and I’m sure they’ll be going back sometime soon. But yesterday, we promised them ice cream sandwiches for a snack if they behaved nicely. Their behavior all day was … suboptimal. But Nathan and I had a whispered conference and decided they both did their best. They both got the ice cream sandwiches, and then we snuggled and watched Frozen II. Sometimes they need time outs to feel safe; but sometimes, the kids need ice cream sandwiches and Olaf.

Mainly, I am trusting my intuition during this parenting adventure. When I sense that Pippa is testing boundaries to see if the boundaries still exist, I send her to time out. But other times, when I sense my kids are misbehaving because HOLY FUCK WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS HAPPENING, I take a deep breath and offer hugs and snuggles.

Parenting is going to seem so easy when this insanity is over.

I keep staring at my laptop screen thinking, I should write something! C’mon! Blogging is good for my mental health and God knows my mental health desperately needs all the help it can get.

And my brain goes: ______________________

Or: a very quiet thrum of white noise.

Or: Gnurple Blug fantatally fuck.

Yep. Yeah. Wow.

I feel bad for my therapist.

I had therapy today. We tried to do it online but the website that we were using for a “secure confidential therapy session” did not allow for sound. I could hear my therapist’s voice, but she could not hear mine; and then she played with the settings and she could hear my voice, but I could not hear her voice anymore. And since sound is critical for therapy (unless both parties are fluent in American Sign Language) we switched to Facetime.

Quick tangent: holy shit, I should try learning a little sign language while we are sheltering at home! There must be something on Youtube, right? I bet my kids would like to do that with me…

Back to this really articulate blog post: we switched to Facetime, I vented about this strange new reality, and by the end of my session, I felt much better. (The bar is low, folks, but still, I’ll take anything!) But as we were finishing my session, my therapist mentioned that she thinks this Strangeness is traumatic for everyone.

That’s when I realized, Holy shit, ALL of my therapist’s clients (patients?) are in crisis. ALL OF US.

Usually, in a given week or month, some of us are in crisis, some of us are “great! spiffy! making tremendous progress!” and then a bunch of us are somewhere in between. But right now, we are all – including my therapist – living through an unprecedented shit storm.

When I am dealing with some Big Issue, my therapist can usually recommend a few great resources. Over the past few years, she has hooked me up with the Calm App, Fr. Richard Rohr, Pema Chodron, and Miribai Starr – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She always knows a book or podcast that can help me process whatever life throws my way.

But this? Sheltering at home during a pandemic for weeks on end with no guaranteed end date? No one has written a memoir about this yet! There will certainly be dozens if not hundreds of Covid-19 memoirs written in the years to come, but right now, we are living the memoir. We are figuring this shit out minute by minute.

No wonder my brain has gone into “Gnurple Blug” mode! Every single minute of every single day is bursting with a sense of “well what the fuck now and are we really sure this is not some elaborate prank? Because it’s easier to think that Ashton Kutcher has punked us all than to digest the concept of a pandemic that has effectively hit the PAUSE button on life as we know it.”

Whew. Once again, having written a blog post, I actually feel a little better.

My poor brain, however is still very much in Gnurple Blug Fantatally Fuck land. Oh well!

Overall, the Novak family is doing very well during the 2020 Epic Shelter-At-Home Craziness. I feel lucky and blessed to have two healthy children who like to play together. We live in a three bedroom house with a lovely front lawn (used today for an obstacle course and soccer) and when the weather warms up, we can swim in our pool. We have a lemon tree and space for a container garden, and our flat quiet neighborhood is ideal for nature walks and scooter rides. Yes, the Novak family is blessed.

But this is still tough!

Fortunately this week is spring break in Pasadena, and the “break” is giving me a chance to give “distance learning” my best side eye. I hate distance learning. It’s a total and absolute fuck. My kids do not have the disposition for being home schooled, and I don’t have the inclination to do it either. There’s a reason they both go to school! If I let them play, make art, and watch t.v., then we are all okay. But then I start to worry that all of Pippa’s classmates are doing more “distance learning” and she will fall behind, and what sort of mother would neglect her daughter’s phonics?!

F-U-C-K, this is hard!

Mostly, like 98% of the time, I am actually handling the shelter-at-home constraints pretty well. I have surrendered to the experience. I am letting the kids play and snuggle with me (we always do this, just way more than usual), and I am looking at the bright side of things. At least I don’t have to pack school lunches and I have plenty of time to do laundry. At least we are not rushing to get to school on time. At least we have each other. At least, at least, at least …

It’s still hard.

It’s hard to be stuck at home all the time with two kids who miss their friends. It’s hard to spend all this time in Mom Mode and not have enough time for Writer Mode. It’s hard to not know when this will fucking end.

I am trying to find the right mixture of “we got this!” and “holy shit, this is hard.” I don’t know that there is actually a right mixture. Instead, it’s more that I have to get comfortable with making space for both ideas in my heart.

Because yes, I’ve got this. I’m actually thriving while I shelter-at-home with my kids. I am blogging, I recorded my first podcast episode in a year and a half, and I’m making decent progress on the first draft of my fantasy novel. I am taking damn good care of myself and my kids, thank you very much, and there are like a hundred ideas on my Pinterest Quarantine board that we are yet to touch. We can do this!

But wow oh wow, this is hard. It’s not natural! I think of my cave women ancestors, venturing forth into the world, bravely and boldly with each other. Humans are not meant to hide in their caves alone for weeks and weeks on end. Yet that is what we are doing. I know it is for the greater good but that does not mean it is easy or natural.

I can do this, but damn, it’s tough. Are there any pandemic merit badges? Because I feel like I have earned at least a dozen at this point and by the time this is over, and we are free to go to birthday parties and museums and restaurants, I will have earned enough merit badge to wallpaper my entire house.

I use the Notes App on my iPhone to keep track of all the random ideas that pop into my head throughout the day. Today I did the iPhone version of spring cleaning and deleted all the olds notes I no longer need, like the invitee list for Julian’s birthday party last fall, the first grade holiday party checklist, and Christmas gift ideas.

For shits and giggles, here are some of the notes that I just can’t explain:

• Troglodyte houses – France
• Fun Words: Spondulicks
• And I’m skipping

I can kind of explain the first two notes. I vaguely recall reading about troglodyte houses in a novel and I must have thought they would make a cool setting for my fantasy novel in progress. And “spondulicks” is a word that means “money, cash” so who wouldn’t want to put that in their iPhone notes?

But “And I’m skipping”??? That’s the whole note – those words constitute bot title and substance – and I have not a bloody clue as to the when, where or why behind those three words. (Meaning of life? A really bad haiku? Too much caffeine? Again?)

More recently, my notes relate to quarantine and shelter at home:

• “quarantine science experiments” (watch out, baking soda stash, your days are numbered!)
• “Corona stories” (because of course my brain is processing this whole fiasco by turning it into a novel)
• “after quarantine” (I’ll write a separate post about my post-Covid-19 bucket list)

I always have multiple notes with ideas for blog posts. I started two in March, and damn, the differences between the two notes really demonstrates how drastically my life has been transformed by Covid-19.

During the first half of March, I wanted to write blog posts about:

• Noom updates
• Girl Scout cookie chair reflections and how the experience helped me grow and come to grips with my anxiety
• Hot Yoga – tips for newbies, my journey and progress, what I have learned
• Aquarium mishaps and lessons

I am still using Noom and it’s a big factor in keeping me healthy and sane during these Crazy AF times. I wrapped up the Girl Scout cookie chair season just a couple of weeks ago, and yet that seems about five lifetimes ago. The hot yoga studio I love and adore is closed during sheltering at home and I won’t be able to go there until at least May. And the aquarium – well, I love our aquarium but it’s not the most pressing thing on my writing mind these days.

The list of blog ideas that I started after my kids’ schools closed is a bit more timely:

• ways to play and have fun at home
• grateful my shoulder went out last year and I got myself into better shape before pandemic started
• ditto for the dishwasher – thank goodness is crapped out in December and did not survive a few more months!
• poor Claire! will she get to be bachelorette?
• it feels like this will never end
• this is tougher for my kids than it is for me
• what works for us does not necessarily work for others.

I am not going to make any promises as to what blog posts I’ll actually get around to writing. I often decide, about ten minutes before I get to my laptop, what I am going to blog about, and then my fingers touch the keyboard and I write about something else entirely. But I am going to keep blogging because every blog post makes me feel a little more centered and sane. I have always wanted to develop a regular blog practice — blogging is not exactly as trendy or sexy as it used to be, but it does feel right for me. So at least as far as blogging is concerned, sheltering at home is helping me develop a good habit that has eluded me until now.

Maybe in all the darkness and weirdness and uncertainty of the pandemic, some good things will actually emerge.

I love podcasts, but last autumn-ish, I got a little tired of my usual shows. Around that same time, I discovered the magnificence that is #IMomSoHard and since they have a book, I decided to try the audio version. I am a huge bookworm, and have tried to get into audiobooks on numerous occasions, but never could. I assumed that audiobooks were just not for me but thought that if I was ever going to like an audiobook, it would be IMomSoHard. I was right – I loved the audiobook – and the IMomSoHard audiobook was kind of like my gateway drug to audiobooks.

So long story short, I became obsessed with audiobooks right around the time I was tired of my usual podcasts, so I stopped listening to podcasts altogether the last few months of 2019.

But at the beginning of 2020, I set a few (or twenty-ish) goals for myself, and one of those goals was to listen to twenty new podcasts in 2020. I am so glad I set that goal because after discovering a few fun new shows, I fell back in love with podcasts. AND JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME because now that we are in pandemic mode, I just don’t feel as interested in audiobooks. Or books in general. My brain just doesn’t have the focus.

But podcasts? Yes, please!

I am currently loving The Dream. Season One was about multi-level marketing companies (MLMs) and honestly, that sounded a bit boring to me. But once I listened to the first episode, I was hooked. Totally fascinating. I just started Season Two, which is about the wellness industry. Also totally fascinating.

The shows I inhaled in January and February were:

• Dr. Death
• The Shrink Next Door
• The Baron of Botox
• Bad Batch
• Food, We Need to Talk

I also started listening to the just launched Unlocking Us with Brene Brown. The first episode was very inspiring and Brene (we’re on a first name basis) talks about the pandemic. The second episode was an interview with the founder of the Me Too movement, which was also very inspiring, but a tougher listen. It was just very weighty and my brain was struggling to grab on to all the ideas. But I am going to listen to the third episode just as soon as I finish binging The Dream.

I also love the show Awesome with Alison. Alison and her husband Eric are currently hosting a read-a-long of The Four Agreements, a book which I have been meaning to reread. If I can get my brain to JUST READ SOME WORDS ALREADY, I am going to do that soon. Awesome with Alison is one of my favorite shows for helping me become a better person, and The Four Agreements changed my life, so really, just check either one out.

I listen to three writing podcasts, because hello, I’m a writer: The Story Grid, The Creative Penn, and How Do You Write? During normal times, I like to listen to those shows weekly. During pandemic times, I’ve been less interested in my writing shows. They will still be there when my brain is ready to think about the process and business of writing again.

And finally, in other podcast news, I did it! I recorded a special pandemic episode for my old podcast Adventures with Postpartum Depression. And it’s already available! Look at that, it’s been a year and a half but my rusty old brain remembered how to ride that bicycle.

I am now toying with the idea of actually starting my new podcast Adventures with My Forties. I have been kicking around the idea for this new show for a year now, and last fall, I actually recorded two or three episodes and started looking for show music. But then I got overwhelmed with mom life and worried that I was taking away time from my writing; and since writing time has been a very precious limited resource for me, I did not want to cut into that time with a podcast. So I tabled the new podcast.

But now the new podcast idea is pinging around in my head and I think I am going to launch it soon. It feels like I don’t have the time for a new podcast, and yet, I don’t not have the time for it either. I meant for the show to deal with adventures like aging, hormones, menopause, spirituality, and parenting, and it will still hit on those issues. Eventually. But right now, it looks like the show will first tackle the adventure of living through a pandemic.

My brain is too tired to think of a clever way to end this post, so instead, I’ll just say bye, adios, and can anyone please tell me why Julian spent the past five minutes licking the window?

I am thinking a lot about the postpartum parents in these Strange AF Times. When I had postpartum depression, I was petrified of germs – and that was in 2013! How are the moms and dads with newborns handling the pandemic? I am so grateful that my kids are 7 and 4. I would be losing my mind if I was still in the trenches with a newborn.

Even though I have retired my podcast Adventures with Postpartum Depression, I keep thinking that I should record a special pandemic episode.

But what the hell would I say? There is nothing I can say that would make navigating these scary times with a newborn any easier for the moms and dads who are tipping into the darkness of postpartum depression (or who are already there). We are all in all new territory. No one knows what it is like to have postpartum depression during a pandemic except the moms and dads suffering right now.

But here is something worth noting: postpartum depression is a spectrum illness. There is no precise formula for who gets PPD and who does not. But there are risk factors that increase the odds that a parent will get postpartum depression. These factors include:

• Traumatic birth experience: I would say that giving birth in a hospital during a pandemic would be pretty damn traumatizing. Also, trauma is subjective. If you think something was traumatic, then it was.
• An emotionally painful or stressful experience around birth or parenting: does a pandemic count? HELL YES! My god. Grandparents are meeting their new grandchildren through windows AND THAT IS NOT OKAY. It’s what we have to do, but how ridiculously heartbreaking. For all of you with little babies social distancing from loved ones, I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.
• Stress: Okay, 2020 is sort of breaking new records in the stress department. #toiletpaper
• Lack of social support: OMFG! We are all lacking social support these days. I am doing tons of phone calls, Facetime, Google Hangouts, and texting, but it’s just not the same as being in the presence of the people I love. Being alone at home was a huge part of my PPD experience. Now everyone in the state of California, and so many other states, have been ordered to stay at home. UGH. New moms and new dads: I see you! Parenting is tough but holy shit, you are dealing with unprecedented toughness.

As I write through my thoughts and feelings, I feel as if all new parents are at an increased risk for postpartum depression. If you are struggling, please please please ask your doctor for help. And please, do not blame yourself. You have not done anything wrong.

I am going to let my thoughts coalesce a little more but the more I think about this, the more I think that I want and need to do a special pandemic episode. I do not have all the answers, but I can at least offer empathy to the new parents suffering through this crisis.

Years ago, I read Brenda Ueland’s magnificent book If You Want to Write and that book contained a piece of advice that I have never forgotten: Neglect the housework. This advice is so important, especially now in the middle of a freaking pandemic, that I am going to hop over to Canva and turn it into a fancy graphic. So excuse me, but I’ll be write back …

Okay, whew, I’m back. I know that was like 0.01 seconds for you, but that actually took about 6 minutes for me, mainly because I was playing with the Fade feature, and after settling on the laundry background image, I saw something that looked like colorful sponges, so I switched to the sponges but the sponges actually looked like melted candies, so I went back to the laundry. But I digress! Here’s the advice again, this time in fancy social media format:

Now I realize we are in the middle of a pandemic, and there are concerns about germs. I get it. I am cleaning and sanitizing counters and sinks way more frequently than is my usual habit, which is fairly close to never. (Don’t tell my mother.) (In usual times, I have a cleaning lady and I do clean the counters on occasion.) (Still, don’t tell my mother.)

These days, I am doing more housework than ever. Since we are eating all our meals and snacks at home, we are generating more dishes. Nathan and I decided on pizza for tonight partly so we can catch up on the backlog of dirty pots and pans (but mainly because pizza is awesome). I am also doing laundry every day, washing counters and tables and sinks, and attending to a never-ending stream of tidying. And these chores actually keep me sane. I get this glowing burst of pride in my chest when I shove the last dish in the dishwasher or cram Julian’s clean laundry back into his drawers.

But I could still be doing more. I sweep, and as I sweep, the kids leave a trail of fresh crumbs across the house. Even when they are not eating! I swear, the kids just spontaneously shed crumbs wherever they go. I tidy, and when I turn my back, the mess regroups and launches a fresh assault, I clean the bathroom counter and the next time I wash my hands, the sink is filthy with toothpaste and paint even though I swear we have not painted in at least three days. I could drive myself mad trying to keep up with the housework.

So I am letting it go.

I will keep the house as clean as necessary for Covid-19 purposes, but I am not going to stress over every stray bit of glitter gracing the wood floors. (And sweet heaven, there is so much glitter, Kinetic sand, dried up bits of play dough, someone please stop me because I could keep writing this list all night!) Even though cleaning and tidying give me a sense of satisfaction, my mental health needs more than that little kick of pride I get from a (momentarily) clean countertop.

My mental health needs:

• Meditation
• Journaling
• Walking, oh my god, so much walking
• Blogging (hi!)
• Writing my fantasy novel
• Stretching
• Crafting
• Snuggling with the kids
• Watching Schitt’s Creek with Nathan
• Listening to podcasts
• Learning French on Duolingo
• Talking to friends on the phone
• Reading

If I lose my mind over housework, all those good things above will fall to the wayside; and now more than ever, I need the things that boost my spirits and make my heart soar.

And then, putting aside my self-care efforts, I am also spending an ass shit ton of time taking care of Pippa and Julian. They need meals, snuggles, stories, more snuggles, tickles, and even more snuggles. They need me to get on the ground with them and decorate our sidewalk with chalk. They need long walks and a listening ear, and their mental health is far more important than the state of the floors. (Even though there is so. much. freaking. glitter.)

I will leave you now with two pieces of advice:

1. Neglect the housework! And perhaps more importantly,
2. Do not ever visit my house unless you are willing to leave with bits of glitter on the bottom of your feet/shoes.