Quarantine

It seems that’s all anyone is talking about these days – the quarantine and how it’s disrupted our everyday lives. Mine, as well as the rest of the world’s, has changed in ways I never would have contemplated just a few short months ago. I’m no longer getting up at 5:00 to get ready for work. Since school has been cancelled and the kids are home full time, I’ve become teacher and referee as well as parent and chief cook. My teenager worries about graduating this year and college in the fall. His social life, which he’d just discovered he had, is limited to Snapchat and Facetime. My prayers go out silently for my other half, who still has to go to work each day, braving contact with the unknown. I go out only for the necessities – food, gas, medicines. It’s a scary world out there, one of limited supplies amidst rampant infection without a cure. And yet…

Time moves at a slower pace than it did previously. I find myself treasuring the days and hours and minutes with my family. The youngest and I have explored new learning resources, websites we never knew existed. I have the luxury of being able to cook an intricate, time-consuming dish instead of a slap-together supper. The option to spread my household chores over a whole week and not cram them into a few precious weekend hours. There is time for reading and writing during the daytime. We’ve painted a mosaic Easter egg and flowers on the living room window, cut out hearts for the front door. We’ve talked and talked and talked without being rushed into short conversations. Or non-conversations. We are cocooning. We are re-connecting. And I’m learning my family all over again.

Stay safe. Stay in. Find the balance.

With love,

Mica