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Challenge: Pandemic Parenting

A Pandemic's Silver-Lining: Time

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Home until at least September. I mean, I knew it was coming, but the reality of the words charged in like a bull in a small shop.

Home until at least September without a day of reprieve in sight and the attachment worries me. Not for my kid, but for me.

The longer I'm home, the harder it is to leave, and the anxiety around it is already festering.
I have fears, and worries, and anxiety, and dips of depression.

But I also have time. Glorious, long lasting, move at your own stride, time.

Never in the memory of my world did I have so much time for such a long extended period.
We're working from home, homeschooling, and taking care of the house and meals, and we're doing it all on our own time.

There's no rush to eat at any appointed hour. Printing and math pages are scheduled for whenever they can get done. We have walks and bike rides and play time and quiet time whenever we feel they fit.

Time. The silver lining, as a good friend mentioned the other day. No rushing to games or appointments or play dates.

Now, don't get me wrong. These are all missed, but if we're to get through this, we need to appreciate what we've been given instead. And that's TIME.

Time we never had with our families because we need to get out the door and off to work. Time we never had to ourselves because we need to eat dinner in between getting home from school and sports.

Time. The thing I'm normally obsessed over and can now put aside as an afterthought. Because I have a lot it and I can spread it out. Instead of the morning rush, I get to experience the morning calm.

It took my mental health a few days - or seven weeks - to adjust to this temporary new normal while I cried every day, but eventually, it did.

And I can breath again.

Yes, I want to go back to what was and I want to breath my own air and I want to detach from my family.

But I can breath again.

So I'll take what is with the hopes to soon return to what was.

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