Dear Addie,
One day years from now we will all have the same chapters in our life’s story - before, during, and after the pandemic. And while our chapter titles might all be the same, the content will surely be vastly different.
Some will have felt fear, while others resided with anger. Some will remember the pain, loss, and grieving, while others found a welcomed halt to their chaotic lives. Maybe some found their place while they've always felt lost and discovered meditation or prayer to guide their way.
There’s really no right or wrong way to feel during this time and quite frankly maybe a lot of us were surprised by our reactions when the time came, which brings me where we are today.
This week you headed back to “in-person” school...again.
It felt weird.
Maybe that’s not what I was supposed to say. Maybe I was supposed to feel relieved or think “thank goodness - it’s about time!“? But somehow I didn’t. It literally just felt like checking a box.
But how could something so significant for where we are in pandemic life leave me feeling like it was just on my to-do list for the day?
I didn't think I'd feel this way.
You see Addie, so much of our life is truly just predictably unpredictable, organized chaos. We literally have no choice most days other than to go with the flow, shoot from the hip, and hope for the best.
This past year, our life has become a series of in-school, out of school, home/computer school, or beach school - you prefer the latter of those ;). You can now easily bounce between them all and it’s only because of how well your school did at keeping consistency in your schedule and content. There is a familiarity to the routine no matter where it's happening.
Was it all fun and games? Nope.
Was it added work on mama keeping it all organized? You betcha.
Did you struggle? Some days, yes.
Do I think this was a wasted year and now we will be battling a “catch up on education game?” No. Unfortunately “catching up” is pretty much how we live, and you have shown no regression in skills navigating it all. For real. There was either you were progressing or no change in your latest assessment review. That means you're pretty much just awesome Addie ;).
Do I understand how others in our community struggled a great deal with all this? 100%. There’s no one size fits all answer to these chapters we are all writing, and especially in our community where it truly is a spectrum disorder, so no one should be surprised to see a spectrum of effects happening due to one single cause. And for the record when the cause is a global pandemic, well, we were and are all as a country navigating new territory.
This week we tip-toed into what we can only hope could be the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel heading back to in-person schooling.
It's been more than a hot minute since we've been in school, so I anticipated a little push back on day 1.
You got up and got ready without fuss, and even let me blow dry your hair. In true Addie fashion, this was rather unexpected but I certainly wasn't complaining. With your mask and coat on you walked over and stood looking out the kitchen window at your swings for a few seconds. You didn’t say anything, just stared at your swings. Perhaps there was a silent conversation between the two of you about how you wouldn’t be home all day to swing during class breaks? Maybe one day you'll tell me what that all meant.
When we arrived at school there was no escaping the sign of the times - temp checks, masks, hand sanitizer, teachers in gloves - you popped out of the car like it was all normal.
While I watched you walk away, I prayed as I normally do. Pray for you not to be bullied, pray you will learn new exciting things, pray you will feel loved, and above all else pray that you stay safe from harm - and I can honestly say that last one holds a bit more weight than the last chapter, before pandemic.
This week we tip-toed though what we hope will be nearing the end of our global pandemic chapter in our life’s story baby girl. Right or wrong it felt like just checking a box, but I’ll take it because change is often so hard for us, and with all the hard work and dedication put in by so many during this time, it luckily just felt like another day.
Great job Addie.
Love,
Mom
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