A Serious Note in the Time of Coronavirus

Next Monday is Ryan's last day at his current job. He decided to make a career transition back in February, before we had any clue what was about to happen to our world just one month later. After what was supposed to be only a year at part-time, I will remain at part-time for the foreseeable future. This means starting next week, I will be the main breadwinner of a family of four with a part-time, non-profit salary. The crazy thing is, both my going part-time and Ryan's career transition were, in the moment we made them, hard, but incredibly important decisions for us as a family. We decided to take some work risk in order to strive for as much peace and joy at home. 

We've spent useless time chastising ourselves for these decisions. I truly believe they were the right decisions. Having flexibility for a year to adjust to two babies at home was critical. Ryan striving to find joy in his work is also important. However, I am very aware that both of those decisions could only be made from a privileged position, one that we still enjoy despite the current uncertainty. We are both privileged in that our qualifications allow us to apply to jobs that can be done remotely. We obtained our qualifications because privilege allowed us access to top educational institutions that provided us with good networks and that resulted in good work experience. So many people currently unemployed have minimal prospects for employment in the near future simply because they didn't have the same privileges we were afforded. 

I say all of this because I've been feeling sorry for myself. I feel sorry that a fraction of my comfort is being taken away, most likely for a short amount of time. I'm sad that I have to reduce (reduce, not get rid of) my childcare. I'm sad that I have to tighten our budget which means getting rid of things that would be "nice-to-haves" in many other's budgets. I'm sad that I can't rent a home in the country or near a body of water to give my kids the opportunity to have some fresh air this summer. And during all of this feeling sorry for myself, I am simultaneously disgusted with myself for mourning these things. These are not things to mourn. We have our health and good healthcare, we have some income, we have a home, we have our lovely kids, we have some childcare, we have savings and 401ks and we still have all of the societal privilege we had before.

This pandemic has shown a great light on the vast inequality and racism that exists, not just in America as a collective, but in each of us.The fact that I can mourn my creature comforts at the same time that African Americans are dying senselessly at the hands of police is racism. The fact that I can mourn my creature comforts at the same time that a pandemic is disproportionately infecting, killing and impacting under-served communities is inequality. My paying triple the amount in tips to a delivery person bringing my family groceries and food does not erase the fact that I have the privilege of keeping my family safe from the virus while asking people with less privilege to sacrifice their health and lives for us. Every day, I'm incredibly grateful for all of those people, incredibly disgusted with myself for taking advantage of the system and incredibly frustrated that I can't find an answer to living a life that feels more in line with my Christian values. I cannot fathom this being the type of societal structure that Jesus would have condoned. I think every day of what He would think about all of this and I pray every day that He might show us the way out. 

But, I'm tired of living in despair because it isn't productive. When I pray, I always come back to the answer of love. Love, love and more love. That's all we can do, right? You can't go wrong with love? (Okay, don't answer that, I know lots of love stories gone wrong, but you know what I mean.) So, I'm going to try to face our incredibly privileged uncertainty with love instead of fear. I'm going to try to face the cruel world with love instead of hate and divisiveness. I'm going to try to approach all people, uber privileged and under privileged with the same amount of love and openness. I am going to try to face my own racism and my own role in the unfairness of society. And trust me, this sounds all hunky dory, but it will be very, very hard to do because deep down I'm a mean old witch that is super judgmental and thinks she knows everything.

To help me reset a bit, I plan on cutting way back on social media for the month of June. I don't want to give it up completely because during social distancing, it is a way to stay connected with people. I will keep up the weekly blog as it is a great source of reflection and comfort to me during this time and it appears some of you enjoy it. I've added an option to subscribe by email if you want to receive my posts directly in your inbox (option located at bottom of main page). I promise I will be back to my silly random thoughts and gifs and won't be preaching every week because who wants to hear a mean old witch preach? 

Thanks for hanging in there with me and see you next week! 

Tiny Infernos in the Time of Coronavirus

This week was neither good nor bad. A positive change from last week's highest highs and lowest lows. I feel a bit emotionally hungover from last week, but otherwise surprisingly calm as June brings some major uncertainties for our family. It occurred to me that our last few cancelled events are coming up next week. We would have been gearing up to celebrate our 11 year wedding anniversary with a trip down to DC to celebrate our 15 year Georgetown reunion. It was supposed to be our first trip away from the kids since Liv's birth. But, that was as far as our extended plans went before quarantine. June will just be a regular 'ole quarantine month. A wild milestone, but also kind of nice? I'm tired of mourning all the cancellations. 

Onto the random thoughts!

1. In honor of our 11 year anniversary tomorrow, I'm going to tell you a story that perfectly sums up our marriage. I asked Ryan what would happen if I lost my mind during this quarantine and tried to kill everyone in the apartment. He immediately responded that he would gently push me out and lock the door. When I bring next-level drama, he answers with calm logic. I can't decide how I feel about the answer. I am pleased that he would protect the babies and treat me so gently, but I am also pissed that he considers me such a minimal threat. 

2. Has anyone read Flowers in the Attic? If so, does quarantine make you think about it? No, just me? Yeah, probably just me. 

(Of course Lifetime did a movie version)

3. Our nanny is a genius. Javi has been giving her trouble on stroller walks because he wants to get out of the stroller and go to the playground. She had a policeman tell Javi that the playgrounds are closed and that it isn't her fault. He is now compliant. When she thanked him, the policeman told her that he has done it many times and it is his second mission during this crisis. It made me sad that not everyone gets treated that way by the police. It also made me feel like we live in a post-apocalyptic Sesame Street.

4. I know I am a broken record, but I am still crazy grateful for childcare. Crazy grateful. The fact that my children have 3 adults loving and caring for them through a crisis is really huge. Each of us has our moments, but collectively, we are hopefully giving them some sense of stability. Children really need villages and I'm so sad for all the children without their villages.

 

5. I remember watching Watchmen with Ryan this past December and always thinking how hot they must get wearing masks all the time. I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined personally knowing the answer 6 months later. I was right, it is like wearing a tiny inferno across your face. But, I will be wearing that tiny inferno across my face until this thing is over. 

6. On that note, the tiny inferno actually makes me not want to go outside as much. I'm slowly getting used to breathing my own air, but I would honestly rather stare out an open window. The parks are still too packed and walking the sidewalks is too depressing with all the closed businesses. It is all too real and too unreal at the same time. 

7. My unending search for disinfectant cleaner continues. Now I'm going to just start begging on the internet. If you can spare some, please send my way! And why is it still all gone???? I miraculously got a Windex Disinfectant on FreshDirect a month ago, but we are starting to run low. I heard some people in Texas can't get avocados. I will ship you avocados in exchange for disinfectant! 

8. I am VERY curious to see how things go with all of these states opening up. I watch my social media with a mix of fear and curiosity. Watching people go back to salons and meeting up with friends now feels like watching people in a horror film decide to split up and investigate the strange noises in their rental cabin in the woods. 

Keep your chins up and your tiny infernos on, my friends!

Begrudging Gratefulness in the Time of Coronavirus

We celebrated Mother's Day and our second quarantine birthday in our house this week. Our daughter Liv turned 1. I was unprepared for the sadness and anger that I felt this week. While I'm sure these important milestones caused most of it, I'm finding it hard to properly assign blame to my feelings lately. Perhaps it is the lack of emotional space, the lack of time to properly reflect, the feeling entirely consumed by anxiety about the future. As I looked back at my one million and one pictures I've taken in her first year of life, I felt angry that she spent the last two months of it cooped up in an apartment. I felt sadness that we couldn't have close family celebrate with us. I felt sadness being so far away from my own mother, not knowing when I will get to see her again. I feel incredibly fatigued. I know that I have a million and one things to be grateful for, but I'm having a hard time finding gratitude this week. For that reason, I'm going to try to focus my random thoughts on gratitude and see how I feel at the end. 

1. I am grateful for my tiny refrigerator that I finally received last week. I'm not sure if any other working moms that have childcare have this issue, but I cannot go out into the rest of the apartment during the work day without my children having a meltdown. Ryan can go in and out without causing disruption. So for 6 weeks, I was entirely dependent on Ryan to make me breakfast and lunch. Now, I can make my breakfast and lunch the night before and have total control over when I eat it. This. Is. Huge. The fridge is also a cute aquamarine color which matches my favorite mug and my engagement ring. 

2.  I couldn't be grateful for the tiny fridge without being grateful for childcare. I have no idea how the rest of you working parents are juggling full-time childcare and work. I hope that I would have risen to the occasion as all of you have, but there are days I'm not sure I would have been able to handle it. 

3. I am incredibly grateful for our apartment. I try to imagine quarantining in our previous tiny shoe box, or our Brooklyn apartment where you can hear everything going on in the building, or the crazy party building we lived in when we first got married. Somehow after two months, it still feels spacious and comfortable. I haven't even had to make any major rearrangements, a favorite pastime of mine. However, once we have more clarity on our immediate future, my first to-do will be to make our bedroom a better workspace. 

4. I'm going to say it. I am grateful for Zoom, Houseparty, Google Meet, Facetime and Whatsapp Video. I've seen the faces of people that I haven't seen in so long and it is keeping me going. It is amazing that we are actually using this technology that has been around for awhile in the way it was meant to be used. Yes, I have some fatigue over constant video conferencing. But, I'm still incredibly grateful.

5.  While I normally wouldn't be grateful for being in the center of the pandemic in the US, I am grateful to be in NYC where I can still get delicious food delivered. If you know us at all, you know that we are a family that greatly enjoys food. It is one of the reasons we live in NYC. I feel stupidly lucky that I can still get the best food NYC has to offer. We don't order as often as we used to, but now it is our special treat that we look forward to each weekend. Most places also offer delivery of alcohol, including the option of a deconstructed cocktail from their menu that you can make yourself. We haven't ordered any yet, but I thought it was a very creative way to continue charging people a 175% markup on alcohol. 

6. I am so grateful for internet humor. Comedy is my coping mechanism. I have zero desire to watch anything that isn't funny. The meme lords are on fire and I am here for it. Keep it coming.

(This has nothing to do with anything, but I couldn't stop watching it)

7. I am so grateful for the resilience of Ryan and the kids. Ryan is always an emotional rock, but even more so now. The kids are joys right now. Somehow, Javi has accepted quarantine life and is thriving. I am in awe of him and working very hard to learn his secret.

8.  Okay, I'm grateful for gratitude. It really does work. But just FYI, when you sit down to write out the things you are grateful for, you don't have to be chipper about it. You can be super cranky and cynical. I've seen so many people post about this exercise and it was never appealing because most of the time I feel pessimistic and crotchety. If you are like me, I'm here to tell you it will still work. You won't end up with rainbows shooting out of your orifices, but you will feel less desperate and murderous. 

Everyone pray for an attitude change next week!

Queen Bees in the Time of Coronavirus

This week, our family dynamic had a huge shift. The most conservative COVID-rule-follower and the most lax COVID-rule-follower completely switched places in a entirely unforeseen and slightly dramatic turn of events. We are still processing how this happened, why it happened, how it happened so suddenly and how we are all going to communicate productively moving forward. Wow, this COVID emotional roller coaster just never ends! Although, I was informed by a trusted source that there is something going on with the moon that is making everyone crazy. So if you are also feeling out of sorts, blame it on the effing moon because COVID can't have all the fun. 

I'm technically on vacation today, so let's get to those random thoughts so I can take a nap. 

1. As I was listening to a podcast today on the Murder Hornet invasion that is joining our daily horrors (what a lovely vacation day activity, you say?), a beekeeper was explaining how he can tell the mood of the hives he cares for and that if they are cranky, it usually has to do with the Queen Bee (I'm capitalizing because she deserves it). Basically, if the Queen Bee is sick or off or missing, the whole hive gets cranky. When I heard this, the first image that came into my head was a lovely Queen Bee, hanging out on a beautiful flower, getting a massage and a little me time while her hive falls apart because she took a 30 minute break. Since I became a mother, I started noticing how much the state of our family unit is affected by my well-being. My mom likes to remind me that children sense your emotional state and are affected by it. This usually ends up angering me because why the hell would you add more stress to my plate? But, she is right. Quarantine has made it abundantly clear and I've been forced to do a lot of self-care for the well-being of my hive. I know there is so much to say here about the patriarchy and gender inequality, etc., etc. But, I'm too tired and overwhelmed by everything to think about that right now and I just want to send a shout out to all of you fellow Queen Bees carrying all of the emotional weight for your hives. 

2. In relation to the above, I think someone should invent a robot masseuse so the poor Queen Bees can get some self-care without COVID fears.

3. Can someone tell me how they are navigating the wild, wild west of online shopping for the new world order? Basically, COVID brought around all of these new purchasing requirements and I have no idea how to buy things responsibly. For example, disinfectant is impossible to find, but there are all of these shady Amazon sellers claiming to sell disinfectants.  I spent 2 hours of my previous vacation day researching the EPA's list of approved products and it was all a waste of time because none of the available disinfectants on Amazon were approved. I also ended up buying 2 gallons of hand sanitizer from a KY distillery and I am still unsure whether it was a proper purchase. Same with masks. I realize those are less technically complicated, but I ended up ordering some from a company that was being touted by an instagram influencer.  THIS IS NOT HOW I WANT TO SHOP, PEOPLE! If you've found any clarity, please, please share your thoughts with me (and yes, I know Amazon is super problematic). Otherwise, I'm going to end up purchasing through these Instagram ads that keep popping up on my feed. 

4. I may be alone on this one, but I'm really tired of hearing people badmouth bras. All I ever see are memes about how bras are no longer needed and it is so wonderful to not have to wear one, etc. I DO NOT relate to these memes in the slightest and I would love to see more bra-lover representation out there. If I had to choose only one article of clothing to wear daily, it would be a bra. So, ease up there bra-burners. 

5. Ryan and I have very different communication styles when it comes to timing: I am a realist and he is an optimist. He would tell me timing based on what he was aiming for, instead of reality. After lots of fights, we decided to share our locations with each other through our Iphones. This solved all of our timing problems. Instead of relying on him to tell me when he was leaving work, I could just check his status. I realized yesterday that I hadn't used that app on my phone in 2 months because he is in front of my face 24 hours a day. Although we are all excited to get out of the apartment and engage with many more people, I think we should be prepared to struggle with separation anxiety from our quarantine bubble mates. I can only imagine that I will have to relive the drop-off nightmare with Javi again once he can return to school. 

6. This one is incredibly selfish, you've been warned. I've come to the sad realization that not only was my birthday (March 15) ruined by social distancing this year, but it is a strong contender for being a remembrance day in the future. I keep seeing it crop up in news articles as a marker of the start of various things associated with COVID. So, my birthday could be ruined forever. Nobody is going to want to party with me on COVID/Murder Hornet/Second Great Depression Remembrance Day. 

Stay safe, my lovelies!  

Swirling Dramas in the Time of Coronavirus

I am not in the mood to write today, but this blog has become a diary and I'm hopeful that it might be useful to my children in future therapy sessions. In the short term it might prove useful to those closest to me in their therapy sessions? I hope the therapists are getting their own therapy, because man, everyone is losing it. 

It is such a strange experience to be in a crisis with literally everyone else on earth. But, while we are experiencing the same outside crisis, everyone's crisis within their homes is drastically different. Even people in the same city have vastly different experiences. What kind of building you live in, whether you have easy access to the outside, the level of social distancing at your nearby park, the level of emptiness of your neighborhood, your ability to have childcare, how your building is keeping things clean, the busyness of your local grocery store and pharmacy, whether you are working or not, your access to safe transportation all affect people in a different way. I had a lot of people just realize that I wasn't leaving the apartment because we live in a massive elevator/doorman building and that even taking the elevator to get outside is a risk. Our beloved doorman passed away from COVID this week, just to reiterate the point. So, we are all in this together, but it also feels like we are all on our own distant planets. Billions of little swirling dramas within one small blue planet in a far corner of the cosmos. Isn't it wild? 

And now, my random thoughts from the week.

1. Why is it called angel hair pasta? This really got me going the other night during an episode of insomnia. It used to totally make sense to me, but now, it seems very wrong. Why would we imagine angels to have thin, delicate hair? In every depiction of an angel I've seen, they have long, thick, flowing locks!!! 

2. I hate children's books that make the night or darkness scary. Without doing it on purpose, we've never brought up the idea that the dark or night is something to fear and, so far, our kids don't fear it. I realize there may come a point in their development that this fear develops naturally, but can we just keep it out of books geared towards kids 0-3?  

3. My condolences to all of you quarantined with food bullies or food pushers. I feel your pain and am close to eating my meals alone in my closest. Can we just let people eat whatever they want and not scrutinize? If people want to eat healthy, let them. If people want to eat comfort food, let them. Eat what you want and keep your nose out of other's plates.  EXCEPTION:  Don't let your loved ones consume disinfectants. 

4. This one is more of a confession. I love trap music. Intense workouts to intense trap songs are my form of aggression release right now. If you have a favorite trap song, send it to me (request echoes sadly within the chamber of my music snob friends).

5. Mario Odessey on Switch is an excellent way to combat cabin fever. You can roam planets endlessly playing short mini games. 10/10 recommend. 

6. Lately, one way I've been passing the time on Zoom calls is imagining what else is going on in the room for each person on the call. For example, Ryan and I share a workroom and he is on Zoom all day. That means at various points of the day, I'm working out just outside of the frame. Or I'm getting dressed. Or I'm eating lunch. Or I'm crying. The people in his meetings have no idea. I imagine everyone has some sort of fascinating thing going on just outside the camera's view, kind of like this. 

7. 6 is the max number of screens for an online party. Anything more becomes a shouting match and the shyer people get drowned out and you end up feeling like you didn't really connect with anyone. If you can't see everyone in the gallery view, you have too many people. For future (and hopeful) purposes, 6 is also my ideal max for a dinner party. 

Until next week!