Both Sides, Now
Everyday I feel like I’m being split into two sides. I see everything one way and so clearly, another. Things like the internet. I have never been so grateful and fearful for what’s online. We need the humor to keep the heaviness light, but the news and information flooding in, fills me with a lingering sense of dread, an incessant drip, drip, drip like a faucet of worry inside my mind.
In one minute, I’m chuckling over a fake personal ad—
Women with hand sanitizer seeks man with toilet paper for good clean fun.
The next I’m reading about a single mother of 6 who survived stage-4 breast cancer, but then died from this virus.
It’s so serious, it’s sobering.
In one breath I believe: we can do this. My family will adjust. We can lay outside on our backs and stare up into the sky and do as Joni Michell suggests, identify each cloud,
“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons every where”
But even the clouds aren’t what they seem, like so many other things these days, we really don’t know anything at all.
My closets and cupboards have never been so organized, but because my kids remain indoors, my home looks chaotic, like I’m hosting some sort of multi-family yard sale.
I am a more present parent; we have endless time for reading and cuddling. I surprise myself with my ability to wear all the hats. We are moving along and suddenly, my kids refuse to bring their dishes to the sink, and for some inexplicable reason, that is the last straw. Those dishes coming directly to the sink and needing their complete unwavering compliance, was the tiny thread that was holding up my last shred of patience that day. I weathered 11 hours of indoor literal bouncing off the walls, homeschooling, the baby eating crayons left on the ground, again—but those plates, that was it.
We are sharing moments together that otherwise would not exist, some are sacred and some I know would have served us all better at school.
I’m staying active because outdoor runs and Zoom virtual Fit4Mom workout videos are my only escape and I need them, like we need the sunshine. And yet I am mindlessly downing coffee and chocolate because worrying about caffeine and calories seems insignificant.
This, right now, is our metaphorical 6-mile walk to school uphill in the snow. Even social distancing has two sides, for us at home the sacrifice can be minimal. For others, it’s cost everything.
Somehow, we are maneuvering the wire between two spans of time. There will only ever be before this and then what comes after. So we are here, together, yet not together, writing the pages of future history textbooks, and it feels like we are on both sides, now.