Well, we managed to escape/survive our first known COVID exposure. O’s daycare had several cases, and we’ve had to quarantine. I was shocked when our tests came back as negative, because I have literally seen those kids lick each other, but it was a big relief. We’re lucky we got this far without a legitimate scare (as opposed to ill-founded paranoia when one of us coughed funny or had the tiniest bit of a headache).
As O is about to turn 4, I feel like I’m finally starting to come out of the fog. I don’t know if all mothers go through this, or it hit me particularly hard because I was so old, but I swear that during pregnancy and those first few years of childhood my brain got completely rearranged. I’ve read that studies show this actually happens – motherhood literally changes our brain structure. Throw in a worldwide pandemic this past year, and the political challenges we’ve been in, and…wow. To say that both the outer and inner landscapes have changed is an understatement. And then, underneath it all, the loss of my dad still resonates.
I’m also about to turn 50 and it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that my life is half over – statistically, probably more like 2/3 over. I still feel like I haven’t accomplished a whole lot, and I really want to be intentional about how I spend whatever time I have left. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I’m working on it. At some point I will stop talking myself out of all my ideas and choose one, but for now it’s all rattling around in my head (and heart) and it’s not really productive. It’s also hard to pivot from working with a small child on bodily functions (sleep, eat, poop, brush teeth) to “lets plan the next 25 years of my life”. Mixed in there is the never-ending pile of laundry, an elderly cat that just keeps hanging on, and the daily question of “what’s for dinner?”.
Mostly, what has been on my mind lately is the difference between “finding joy” and “being joyful”. As important as the former is, the latter is really what I’m after. You know how every once and awhile you cross paths with someone who just exudes joy? They are just present and engaging and make you feel better for being in their presence? They have a way of marveling at the world and enjoying all it has to offer? That’s what I aspire to be. I’m not sure my sarcastic, impossible-to-please, New England-raised, iced-coffee drinking inner curmudgeon will allow that, though. We’ll see. In the meantime, these lyrics have been rattling around my head:
It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
Maybe we’ll get forty years together
But one day I’ll be gone
One day you’ll be gone
(If We Were Vampires, Jason Isbell)
