It's Temporary
Last night, I was scrolling through my Facebook memories half-heartedly, looking for baby pictures and not much else. But then I came across this gem from December 2019, and suddenly my heart was in my throat.
“I’m happy to be back at work after maternity leave. The only drawback: my wardrobe choices no longer depend solely on which pair of cute leggings I'm wearing and how well they pair with which t-shirt.”
Little did I know that in four short months, I would be sent back home - not for leave this time, but to work from home until this pandemic thing blew over. It was temporary, for sure. We’d be back at the office in two weeks, a month tops.
Of course, that’s not exactly how things went.
I, to be clear, am incredibly privileged in my work from home experience, which is something I don’t take for granted. I have loved working for home for the most part. I’m back in the office now most of the time, but I have flexibility I didn’t have before, as well as a super nice desk my spouse surprised me with last Christmas. No more cramming my knees under a children's desk! We didn’t face unemployment last year, when so many were being furloughed and permanently laid off. We have blessedly (to our knowledge) managed to avoid becoming infected with COVID. We are happy and healthy, if not occasionally a little lonely and stir crazy.
It's been an interesting 20 months, for sure. I don’t have much more to say, other than to share this list of unorthodox things I’ve done while working since March 2020:
Listened to my six month old daughter wheeze and grunt, RSV raging in her lungs, and worried she somehow had this new scary disease
Fed kids, from bottle-feeding formula all the way up to opening individually packaged snacks snatched from the kitchen counter with grubby fingers and eager eyes
Changed diapers, potty-trained, and cleaned up poop disasters
Bathed my children
Fried an egg
Taught myself how to bake
Began (and threw away) at least 5 sourdough starter attempts
Cleaned and organized with the force of an entire life's worth of mania squeezed into 1500 square feet
Folded laundry
Scrubbed toilets
Hung curtains
Purged toys
Watched my youngest child take her first steps
Developed a strong appreciation for Disney+
Watched Love is Blind and begged my husband to never leave me because wow, if’s a wild ride out there
Sobbed in despair on my bedroom floor
Screamed into a pillow
Ran laps around my backyard
“Meditated” with an eye open, occasionally typing a reply to an email
Cuddled my kids, both before and after losing my temper with them
Just in general? Lived my life.
I don’t expect this liminal existence to last forever, although I would love it to be permanent, but I think it's safe to say it’s we can’t call it temporary anymore.
There have been enough ups and downs over the past two years to fill a theme park. It’s been hard on my kids especially to be trapped so often inside these same four walls, day in and day out. But I’m glad that I got to spend a good bit of the last two years in the comfort of my own home, where I could cope and rest and take care of myself and spend time with my family and learn to appreciate the house that has now become a home.
Hopefully December 5, 2022 feels a little more normal. Even if that normal just means we’ve redefined our understanding of the word.
