I was just reading over old blog posts from right after the pandemic started and wondering if I was really that naive to think everything would be totally fine in a few weeks or if everyone else actually believed it, too, and that we were all way off base together.
It's been more than a year since the pandemic started and nothing is back to normal yet. We're still required to wear masks whenever we leave the house, restaurants and businesses are still not operating at 100% occupancy, and we're all just over it. Since everything began 13 months ago, every one of my children and their friends have celebrated at least one "Covid birthday" where parties were skipped in favor of quick drive-bys. Lincoln has had two quarantine birthdays and Bailey will hit her second one in June. It's wild. Our kids didn't go trick or treating this Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent with just a small portion of our family since Covid regulations allowed for only 10 people at inside gatherings. For the first time in my 36 years on this earth, I didn't celebrate the holidays with my grandparents. It's been exhausting. And frustrating. And sad.
Scott was back in school 4 days a week back in August, with one day virtual. He's been back full time since January. It's a struggle for him and every single teacher out there. They've had to learn and adapt to new virtual platforms, while still teaching their in-person students, and they've had very little support from administration. In Scott's district (and I'm sure many others), teachers were given the option to come back to the classroom full-time right away, mid-pandemic, or risk losing their jobs. There was no option for them to continue working virtually from home and I can't tell you how many times he was notified of a positive Covid case in his building.
Bailey just went back to school in person in February, after almost a year of virtual schooling. Scott and I struggled with this decision, but ultimately let her decide. I'm actually glad that she went back. Nothing is what it should be or what it would have been like had we not been teaching and learning in a pandemic, but she needed the social aspect of it all. Virtual learning was really hard for her and her mental health took a huge hit. Her grades slipped and she literally spent 22-23 hours a day holed up in her bedroom. By choice. Now, she still spends a lot of her time in there (but I think that's just her being a pre-teen and enjoying her own space) but she gets to go out and go to school. She's made new friends, brought her grades up, and seems to be doing better.
Gerry is still home. He could have gone back in person the same time Bailey did, but I'm glad we chose to keep him home. He struggles with wearing a mask for long periods of time and his Tourette's has gotten so much more noticeable in the last year that I'm truly not sure how this year would have gone for him. I know it wouldn't have been easy.
Lincoln is set to start Kindergarten in the fall, but no one knows what that will look like. We weren't expecting things to look like they do now when schools closed last March, so I'm not keeping any sort of hope that things will magically be back to the way they were in a few more months. I've learned my lesson there.
I am...I'm plugging along. With the kids all home the past year, I haven't gotten much of a break or time to myself and it's been tough. I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but that's the best I can say about the last 13 months.
Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson have all created a vaccine and everyone has been urged to get themselves vaccinated. I don't see the vaccine as being this all-powerful weapon that will save us and allow us all to get back to normal right away like many people do, but I did get vaccinated, if only to prevent myself from unknowingly passing the virus on to someone else.
That light at the end of the tunnel is still very far away. So far away. But I'm looking for it and I'm hoping to see it sooner than later.
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