Our neighbors recently visited with us out in front of our house: it was happy hour, and the sun was just barely beginning to set. The day was cold but the sun rays did succeed in starting to melt the mounds of snow we received last week. As kids played and the dads discussed something I didn't think pertained to me, I looked over at my fellow mom. She said, "How are you guys doing? Everybody doing all right?"
This is the question I both hear and I find myself asking as the ground begins to thaw. Temperatures are above freezing, and as more people walk their dogs, or as we cross paths with neighbors and friends, there's a familiar theme to the greetings: How's everyone handling the winter? You making it over there? Haven't seen your face in awhile, and we've been all cooped up: you guys good?
Before answering her, I felt myself pause briefly as I browsed through all the events of the past day, the past week, the past month in my brain. How do I answer this question? There's no good way to summarize the emotional ups and downs, the small joys, moments of laughter, consistent frustrations between personalities, endless mediation and requests for conflict resolution, and the general malaise we feel at the duration of this pandemic. I almost said, "we are going Covid Crazy." But instead I took a breath.
me: Good...(?). I think. We're hanging in there. Just glad the snow distracted the kids enough for a couple days that they wanted to be outside, playing, moving their bodies.
Our children had a large wooden toboggan they were attempting to ride at a snail's-pace down a patch of snow that had yet to be trampled upon. One could barely call it a hill, but a slope existed, and they were making the best of it. Thank goodness we were all outside - who cares that the wind was picking up? - and thank goodness the kids were all playing together.
Covid Crazy is the brain fog, the lack of structure, the inability to know how long this will go on. Because we as adults can't know for sure, then it's 10X worse trying to explain it to our kids. The overall lack of control is what makes the crazy. Who knows what each day will bring: will the first grader cry all the way out the door to school? Will the fourth grader flail about as she tries to gather all her belongings from distance learning back into her backpack after a Wednesday learn-from-home? Will the 6th grader mope around with nothing to do but beg to play Minecraft after his homework is complete? When will I get a vaccine? When will the kids?
The truth is we have no power over the course of this pandemic. Never did, never truly will. We never had control over life pre-Covid, either, but it was easier to convince myself that I did back then.
So to assist me in my lack of control over what daily life brings, I've returned to a system that has helped me in the past: the 12-steps. However, I've modified them just a bit to complement this prolonged-pandemic-living, this new normal, this waiting game of when we can hug and host our friends and family inside our home again. When I start to feel Covid Crazy, I can come back to this:
1. We admitted we were powerless over the pandemic - that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves, and the CDC, and a vaccine could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God, as well as to regularly turn our attention to Dr. Anthony Fauci's guidance.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, including our closets, kitchens, and streaming services: how many boxes of masks do we have at the ready? How much hand sanitizer is on hand? How much chocolate hasn't been eaten? How many shows have we binge-watched this past year? How many streaming services do we currently pay for?
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human being 6-feet-away the exact nature of our pandemic habits.
6. Were entirely ready for Dr. Fauci and our local health department to remove all of our lockdown orders and restrictions.
7. Humbly asked God to remove our impatience at how long #6 takes.
8. Made a list of all persons we missed seeing during the pandemic, and became willing to FaceTime, Zoom, or take a brisk, masked walk in a park with them all.
9. Made direct contact with such people wherever possible, except when to do so would unnecessarily expose them to our air particles.
10. Continued to take inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it: we could probably drop AppleTV and Hulu, if we're being honest.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious, loving patience with our spouse, children, and fellow-pod members, praying only for the knowledge of why we chose to live together in the first place and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all areas of our lives. But only while outside, socially distanced, and wearing all forms of PPE.
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