I was on the phone to my sister last night who lives in the UK. They are using a very different strategy during COVID. In fact, they have a new scheme ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ where the Government are paying for people to go out to dinner! As I sat there jealous of her going out for dinner three times this week — paid for — I said we had four weeks more of lockdown to go. My eldest son groaned and said, ‘Four weeks? I thought we have just done four weeks not two.’ It got me thinking about ‘FOMO’ and how I want you to know that just because I am a Principal, I imagine things are not a lot different in my house compared to yours.
There are many things about isolation I don’t mind. I have learnt how to bake sourdough (hasn’t everyone?), we have spent a lot of time together as a family playing board games and watching movies, we had five lovely months with my niece who has now gone back to the UK. For a while there, my house has never looked cleaner. I even did a spot of gardening and it looked lovely. I was motivated and had grand plans. I created a lovely office and I even created a little exercise place on the deck.
However, the cracks are starting to show. I had booked in people to fix things in my house while my husband is working from home but now they have all cancelled. My washing is piling up despite not even having school uniforms to wash. I am craving doing something other than watching Netflix and playing board games. I have days where I feel sad and want it all to end. I tell off my boys when I catch them sneaking on electronics, yet again, but I have times when I am not sure what else to do. I try to keep up with all of their school work but the other day I didn’t understand the science of plants! I try to walk and keep fit but an hour only does 5000 steps. At the beginning of the day I have good intentions to contact friends but by the end of the day I am too tired.
What I want you to know is that we are all in the same storm, we’re just weathering it in our own different little boats.
I understand when you say, ‘my child doesn’t want to do their school work today.’ I hear you when you say, ‘my child seems flat and misses their friends.’ So what do we do? I pray. Little prayers to God asking for strength and wisdom to do what is right and that someday soon things can go back to how they were. I also reach out to my son’s teachers. I don’t need them to fix anything. I just need them to know that the children in my boat might need a little bit of extra attention some days. And you know what? They always come through. That’s what keeps us going because this will all pass one day and we will have learnt a lot and have some amazing stories to share.
Today, know that we are all in the same storm, no matter how different it might look form your vessel.