What I thought isolation would be like and what has really happened
I thought that I would suddenly miraculously have the time to do so many things when I found out that we would be staying home during this pandemic. And those first two weeks, even though I was creating lessons for my personal children, I felt like I had some kind of time to be and breath. In fact, I thought I would be posting more lessons to use for parents all over. I laugh at my positivity at this point.
Those first two weeks were a bit easier because I sent my students home with a packet of work that they could try to do at home while we figured out the path forward. It was two weeks of work that looked similar to a summer reading assignment. My personal children were kind of easier then. They didn’t know what to expect, my son acutally like learning with me. Even though I knew I needed to be focusing on students I wanted to keep him involved, and his sister was enjoying doing some fun stuff instead of work that she had in packets that didn’t seem to be pointing her in any direction.
As I thought about the possibility that this might be our new normal for a while, and I thought I would be posting more here and sharing my lesson plans that I was creating (these lasted about 5 days in my house before I learned heavily on things like typing.com). And then I got word that I was going to be working from home, and the reality set in that I had no idea how to work this new angle for the high school students I teach. So much of what we do in a classroom depends upon them being together, hearing from each other. Many high school children have learned to be quiet, to not share, they fear ridicule and being laughed at. Having this happen in a classroom setting can be devastating. But having it happen and you have no idea but your brain tells you it is happening….high school kids imaginations are on crazy overload.
And so…my plans shifted to the back burner.
For many people they created sourdough starters and started planning the new version of victory gardens. But these are not new things for us. In fact, about a year ago I had to let our starter go because I had gotten off track and off schedule, a turned starter is not something fun to have to get rid of. Prior to the car accident I had, I was growing a garden. Although, sometimes I felt that the gophers got more of my food than we ever did. Chickens have been the most common purchase for animals on our property (seems that goldfish for the pond may be the close second). Raising dogs who don’t think that the chickens are fun toys has also been interesting.
Someone said to document everything that we are doing, but I feel that I would be like those satirical TikTok posts starting with a Day count and a list of what I didn’t do, or the loss of time, or the number of tv shows I had completed binging.
The reality is that most aspects of our life are normal. Instead of asking the kids if they want to go to the grocery store with me and being turned down, I now just go alone and don’t ask. My son still hopes that some how his screen time for video games is going to extend and he can rot his eyeballs out of his head with blue screen light. My daughter has resorted to more books, teaching herself to perfect her drawing skills, and writing fan fiction on her Wattpad account. I attempted to become TikTok famous, make it to 201 likes, and felt I was being redundant. I guess there could still be hope for me.
My husband is the only one that has created humor for us. He is a flooring contractor. Strangely, about 6 months before Covid-19 created our pandemic isolation, we had planned on him making some big shifts to his business model. Adding another functionality of his skills, and dropping some of the aspects of flooring that are getting to be too hard on his body (we have already rebuilt a shoulder and put in a new hip). But the planned down time as we attempted to make the shift of ideas with his clients became radio silence. Using some of his connections, he managed to get wood donated, not the best wood, and left over parts of orders that have no matching parts, and people tend not to request 150 sq feet of wood for a project anyway.
The first project he took on was to lay hardwood floor into the back section of our garage where we store our ATVs. This wood he referenced as firepit wood. This is not the product name it would have been sold under, but the wood was splintery, had knots, some knots had fallen out. We got this wood because no one would have paid for it. It would have been great kindling though!
Garage Dance Floor
Where all ATVs will park on a nice shiny floor
He laid it in, and then he sanded it, he filled the holes, he sanded it again, then a stain went on, and holey macaroley, I have a dance floor in the back of my garage. He has now laid a finish on it, and I must say that we have the most spoiled ATVs ever. They are even getting their own doors fashioned for them, also a project by my husband.
I joke that we will have a dance floor for our daughter when we torture her with a Sweet 16 birthday party. And actually, her friend’s mom and I are already thinking we should have a post pandemic dance off for the kids to get back together. Maybe a hot July evening, everyone can wear masks, and we can have a socially distant dance party. I mean, that is what middle school dances are like any way, right?
All in all, I think my first learning is that I would love to be able to work like this if it was just me at home and my kids had their own teachers and not needing me to break down what their teacher said while I am trying to respond to an email from a teacher that I support. Or trying to figure out how my son could possibly be done with math when he wrote question marks for responses to each question asked of him. I am not suddenly touting the beauty of teachers, I mean, I am one, I write my son’s teacher a thank you email once a week because he totally pays attention to her videos and zoom meetings. I am touting that even though we are at home, for some of us, things just got harder. I do value and appreciate not only the education I am providing, and I worry about my students abilities to learn through this. But I think the realization that we have allowed for our lives to get this hard. We don’t realize it, but the stress we feel now, how was that any better when we added a commute to our day? Even when I put barriers on when I can look at work emails, I brought it home before, and now it is just still set up in the kitchen. For those who are still working in all the fields of life that keep the rest of us going. Those people we have looked beyond and past for years. The lady at the grocery store you have said hi to because she is not as crazy as the guy who tells you his life story while you check out. She is now working with a mask on all day, and a barrier up between you and her, and she has to wash down her counter every 30 minutes, and she washes hands more because that guy who never responds to her hello on a regular day could be the one that infects her. Life just got harder because we woke up all of a sudden. I hate to be rude and say it, but really, for many who are complaining, we did all this before, but just a bit more structured; like your kindergartner wasn’t doing his finger painting in the corner of your office during your conference call.
I hope as we walk out of this one day, we come to realize the important parts of our lives. Those people who spent 12 hours at their work are able to cut that back and enjoy their families more. Or that we bother to ask our children what they learned after we had to relearn math with them at the dining room table. That we can buy into life again, not into the drama and disdain that we held for our 9-5s. I hope that we can embrace (not necessarily the physical kind) a love of being human again.
