Recreating the old lockdown days. (Day 142, Year 2)

Friends, we've reached the point in the year when I am basically finished with seeing, coordinating and being with all of you in the context of things related to sports (except summer swim), dance, activities, school events and other related things that involve costumes and uniforms and effort. 

This is not to say I am finished being friends with you. I just think we can all agree that we've done our time on the sidelines and theater chairs and it is time for some space and independence!

We all need to let our wings fly into a break from ALL OF THIS!

Remember when we first had the COVID lockdown approximately a million years ago? Remember all the time we had? Remember how we never drove our children anywhere except for emergency dental appointments or to drive through "moving up" ceremonies that were very substandard or as company when we went to do our Target curbside order? Remember how we pivoted and played baseball with our own families and being hikers and walkers and nature lovers? Remember how we'd race out at lunch and crane our necks to the sky to look for fighter jets putting on a show, because we were living in the end of days and we had nothing else. 

Well, I am missing those days. I plan to recreate them this summer. 

I just have to make it through travel soccer try-outs, dance recitals, a performance of some sort that I am forgetting and will be inconvenient,  finishing up all the things I volunteered to do but haven't finished, yelling at my children to do their homework and whatever theme days appear on the school calendar. 

And while this list seems long, it is nothing compared to the things we've endured these past few weeks--insane weather shifts, endless games, tournaments cancelled, games rescheduled, performances, performances, hysteria, missing jazz shoes, missing school work and missing time that has seemed to evaporate into thin air. 

I am done! No one listens to me anyway. And everyone is mean to me! Maybe I'll lock down all alone! 

(I cannot be actually done; because of the things I listed above. And I do like most of you; so I hope you continue to be my friend and like say hello or visit me in my solidarity lockdown in the garage.)

I do not want to drive a child anywhere nor do I want to figure out their social lives or where they are. They can sit in their rooms and watch TV like the children of the pandemic that they are! They can enroll in an online class about how to draw a robot or how to train sharks. 

 I am done with the endless thinking and maneuvering and scheduling.  

I am not planning next year, I am not planning the summer. I am not planning anything, not even dinner. 

The only thing I am planning is the time I can spend in my pandemic garden, eating my strawberries, murdering spotted lantern flies (who I name after people and things I don't like), talking to my peas (they are so sweet!), hammering in trellises for my pole beans and counting my volunteer tomato plants, while imagining what they will be once they produce fruit.  

Note: all the plants are very nice to me! And they always listen! 

My garden is in the front yard, so there is a risk of seeing people who walk by and want to close talk. I think if I cough loudly, they will distance themselves. We are in a mother surge, so anything is possible. 



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