And It All Went Away

                       

We are still here. How long has it been? Five weeks now, I think? Things are getting better. I don't know if they are actually getting better or the fact that I am medicated is making things more bearable. We do what we can to get through the day. We wake up, we work, we eat and we try to entertain ourselves and we sleep. There is no end in sight really. There are glimpses that things will return to normal but there are no promises in this place. How quickly everything evaporates. It simply takes your breath away.

They canceled school for the rest of the school year. When I told the kids, they seemed ambivalent. Everything has been taken away from them already, that what is the point of being sad and disappointed? They kind of just shrugged. I do worry about them. They seem okay but still waters run deep. Some days are better than others. I am trying to be gentle with them. Their entire lives have been turned upside down.

I wonder about how this will affect them long term. Will this be the thing that defines their generation? Every generation has the thing that shapes who they are. Those who lived through the Great Depression, wars, 9/11. When 9/11 happened, I was just a few months shy of 18. My entire childhood was pre-09/11 and my entire adulthood was post-09/11. I think that has shaped how I view the world tremendously. This is different than 09/11 though. 09/11 was like a gunshot, stunning and shocking. This is like a festering wound that has slowly turned gangrenous, spreading and turning everything black and decayed. You can't compare one to another but they are both devastating in different ways.


 I wonder what it will be like for them. How will society be different? Will they view the world differently? Will they always have an additional stock of toilet paper and hand sanitizer? Will they forever morn this lost time? Will they watch their own children at the ages they are now and pause?

Having older children in this situation is both a blessing and a curse. Life is easy with two teenagers. They get up in the morning and are responsible for themselves. They are independent with their school work, cook most of their own meals, do their laundry. They require little upkeep from us. This leaves us time to relax and to work. The house has been peaceful. Then, there is the other side.

Our kids are older and very smart. They understand. They watch the news. They've seen the scary suits and the morgue trucks and the headlines. They know when I am sad. They grasp the seriousness of it. We do our best to temper their concerns and to be hopeful. We never have tried to shield the children from the truth about anything and the same is true with this.

They look to us for answers but we don't have any. In that way, we are truly going through this together. The other day my daughter asked, "What do you think is going to happen? Do you think I will be able to go away to school?" I didn't even know what to say. "I don't know, but I hope. None of us have ever been through this before, but every storm runs out of rain sometime."

Which really, is some bullshit thing to say. But I need them to hold onto a shred of hope that things will get better. And it will. But it might not be soon. That is hard. Sometimes I wish they were little during all of this and that their days were filled with blowing bubbles and Disney movies and wonderful obliviousness.

When we have children, we want so much for them. We pour all of our hopes and dreams and wishes into them. We want them to have good times and beautiful experiences and coming of age in the middle of a global pandemic was not something that I wanted for them. I couldn't have known. I couldn't have prepared for this. As a mother, I mourn for them. They are young. This is supposed to be their time in the sun. They will never get this time back.

If it changes them, I hope it changes them for the better. I hope it helps them appreciate the little things in life. I know it will change me. Our lives are shifting. I am going to really live, to re-focus. My volunteer life is starting to wind down. I'm going to write and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. My trips are canceled but once things are normal again-I'm going everywhere. Greece, Italy, Jordan, Ireland, Isreal, Thailand, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Morrocco, Canada, England. EVERYWHERE. That's my next 10 year list. This pandemic can suck it.

In spite of this pandemic, it has been a good life. The actual staying in the house part - I love! We have a very close-knit family and it is so nice to hang out and just BE with the kids. I like evenings alone with my husband and not ever having to wear a bra.

When this storm does run out of rain and the sun comes out, there will be much rejoicing. But we will never be the same.

I'm Holding on for Dear Life

               
We've been in self-quarantine for 26 days now with no end in sight. This week, I think I hit my point of no return. At the beginning of all of this, I made the assumption that it would get easier as time went on. But I was epically wrong. I've simply become more and more numb inside as the days go on.

On the surface, all is well. Certainly, we are much better off than some. We have our jobs and our health. The kids are easy. We are enjoying our time together. We are lucky. In some ways, that makes it worse. The guilt. When there is suffering and death all around but you are okay. I went to pick-up groceries yesterday and all the stores and restaurants were closed. I thought of everyone who has lost their jobs. I can't even read about the death toll anymore. My heart hurts so bad.

I am trying to come to terms with the many things we will miss in the coming months. The kids aren't going back to school for the rest of the year. They haven't announced it yet, but I know this will be case. I can't imagine any scenario where they would. We aren't supposed to peak here for weeks. My daughter is moving to Greenville in the fall (maybe, will this be over then?). She will never play with her band again, or drive to school, or eat lunch in the courtyard with her friends. There will be no prom. We already brought her dress. She looked so beautiful in it. Josh was trying to convince his mother to drive the BMW. They were supposed to have fancy dinner, and have pictures taken downtown, and then dance the night away. Her dress is still at the tailor. Not that it even matters. She is holding up okay. She mostly just wants to sleep, and I let her. I don't blame her at all. She comes down in the evening and participates in games or whatever activity I've planned to distract us. She is not happy but she does what she has to do every day.

And my youngest. This is her 8th-grade year. The end of the year for them is so fun. They are the oldest group and have survived the hell that is middle school. There are celebrations and goodbyes. This is their last slice of childhood before high school. I remember sitting in the awards ceremony my oldest daughter's 8th-grade year and the principal said, "These kids come in here as boys and girls and they leave as young men and women." There will be no awards ceremony for my baby. She got straight As all year, she is a junior scholar, she is so smart and amazing and I am so sorry that the best time in middle school will be taken away from her.

The last day of school, when school lets out, the principal rings the bell at the front of the school. He pulls this long rope and it "gongs" as the children stream out of the school, chatting excitedly, ready for the summer break. I fear this year will be silent.

I wonder things like, how will the kids clean out their lockers? They have things at school. There was no warning. Will it be some stuffy day in July? Will they let them in and grab their sweaters, gel pens and memories?

I don't think my youngest will get to go to Governor's School in June. I'm hoping and praying but they haven't sent the email for us to pay yet and I know that means it is up in the air. She was so looking forward to it. It will crush her.

We won't be going to Italy. That is the biggest sting of all. We've been planning and saving for this trip for over two years. It's paid for. I should be able to get credit. I'll just push it to next year. I've been so looking forward to it. I can't even think about it right now. I can't process it. My disappointment is deep as the ocean. I've been watching Italy this whole time and I feel terrible for the people there. It is worse than a nightmare.  I literally cannot breathe, if I think about it. The past few days I've been having horrible panic attacks. I can feel them coming, like a wave crashing into me. They haven't been bad like this in almost 20 years.

I have a panic attack if I think about anything in the future. I just can't. People are asking me about things that are supposed to be coming up, changes that need to be considered, plans that need to be made. I can't bring myself to go there. I am completely in survival mode now. I can only think about today. How am I going to get through the day? What things do I need to do? What shred of hope can I hold onto? What can bring me joy?

You would think that ME of all people would be okay. In my life there were no school trips away, no graduation from high school, no graduation from college, no wedding, no honeymoon..... No events or celebrations for major life milestones? Crushing disappointment? Life being weird and not normal? Those are things that I am intimately familiar with. I trained for this my entire life. Shit, this should be my Olympics. But it's not. It surprises me and makes me angry at myself.

When I was young, I learned not to look forward to or get excited about anything. It was a defense mechanism. It protected me from the inevitable disappointment. I feel like that right now. I'm not looking forward to anything. I am simply waking up and going through the motions. I did that for YEARS of my life. In some ways, it is like being home again, but like if your home was shitty and terrible. It's better though because my house is harmonious and I have my family here. It is helping.

I think it's the hardest for my husband. The quarantine doesn't bother him, he could probably do this forever, but he can't stand to see me like this. I can never fool him. He knows that I am sad. Completely devastated. I am usually the positive, jovial one. There is nothing that he can do and he hates that. He is always asking me if I'm okay, multiple times a day. Hopeful, that just one time I will say that I am. But I will not lie to him. I say, "No, not at all," calmly and resolutely. He frowns. He hovers around me. I think he is trying to make me feel better, to make sure I am alright. I think he believes I am fragile and could shatter into a million tiny pieces at any minute. And maybe he is right.

I am not okay. I also know it's okay to not be okay. I hate people saying, "Look on the bright side." Gee, Karen! Why didn't I think of that?!?!? You must be some kind of prophet. Your wisdom astounds me. Right now I am not okay. I am angry, I am sad, I am disappointed, I am panicked, I hate pretty much everything, and getting out of bed every day seems like a chore. But, I also know that I will be okay. That this will pass. Every storm runs out of rain eventually. We are alive, and healthy, and have much to be grateful for. One day, this will be a painful and distant memory. I will forget it. I've been keeping a daily account of my day because I know that I will block out this time. I do that with all of my painful memories, I extract them from my brain completely. There are whole parts of my life I don't remember, people that I've forgotten. Bad memories are like cancer. They serve no purpose but if you let them stay long enough, they will spread into the healthy parts. Once this is over, I will bury this time deep, deep inside of me never to see the light of day ever again.

There is nothing to do now. Just wait and pray and survive.

Pomp and Circumstance

                          
I always tease my husband that he failed the third grade. He always corrects me by stating that actually he attended summer school, therefore he technically passed. Then he proceeds to tell the story of how he saw the Pp on the alphabet chart and made a joke about "pee-pee" and the summer school teacher made him leave. He loves that story- we've all heard it about a hundred times. He was that kid in elementary school that was always getting into trouble. He didn't think he was smart. As he got older, his behavior calmed down and he only ever did enough school work to get by.

I met him right after junior year of high school. Going into senior year, he had no plans for the future. It never even occurred to him that he could go to college. Neither of his parents even made it to high school. But they were good people. They worked hard. They wanted a better life for him.

He joined the Army in February. He woke up that morning with no intention of it. He simply tagged along to the recruiting office with his cousin who was considering joining the service. He was standing there and the recruiter asked his plans for after high school and he said he didn't have any. The recruiter was like, "Wanna get out of this small town and shoot some guns?"  My husband was like, "Hell yeah." Then he signed the papers. I'm not 100% that is how it exactly went down, but you get the gist. He went home and told his parents he had joined the ARMY. He never even consulted them. His mother cried. What was done was done.

He scored high on the ASVAB and got a job in accounting. He was smart. HE just never realized it. I knew all along though. It 18, on paper, marrying him seemed like a gamble. But I knew HIM. I knew he was smart, kind, generous, and a hard worker. To hell with what anyone else thought.

Unlike my husband, I always knew I would go to college. I grew up knowing that was the plan. When we got married, I enrolled in the local university. I took a class with a soldier that told me that the military would pay your tuition while you were active duty and that it didn't affect your GI Bill. At that time, my husband had already been in the service for a year and had gone through accounting school and was doing accounts payable for the ARMY.  He was ready. "You can take one class at a time," I said. That's what he did.

We took a Biology class together that summer. We studied together and were always lab partners. We actually had class on our first anniversary. We did our Lab and then came home and played Scrabble. Romance.

Life changed. I got pregnant, we moved, and moved again. He got a job with the Department of Defense and started an Associates Degree Program. He finished at 22. He was so happy. Those were hard days for us. I was still in school too, and we had a baby. He would work, come home and do school work, and watch the baby while I did school work. It was impossibly difficult. He vowed never to go back to school.

Life continued to march on. We moved and moved again. He left his accounting job with the D.O.D and went to work for a small IT company. He worked hard, he learned a lot and he built a good life for us. Then, he went into contracting work. He's always wanted his work to benefit veterans and soldiers and it was BIG for him.

My husband's dreams have always been: serving those who serve, traveling the world, not having to live paycheck-to-paycheck, making sure the children have what they need, being happy.

A few years ago, he started traveling for his job. He's gotten to go cool places - Texas, California, Hawaii, Germany. He works long hours when he travels so he doesn't get to explore. But SOMETIMES he works weird hours (like going in at midnight) so he does get to see some of the places.

When he was in Germany in 2016, it was a long trip - two weeks. Sixteen hour days. He was supposed to have ONE day off. He really wanted to go to Paris. He called me that week and was going back and forth about it. "The other guys don't want to go, the train tickets are $200, what if I get lost?" I was annoyed. "If you can go-then go. It will be $200 well spent. If they don't want to go, go alone. You'll regret it if you don't." A few days later, he sent me a selfie of himself, smiling from ear to ear in front of the Eiffel tower. I teared up. I was happy for him. The man has worked so hard his whole life, he deserves every good thing that comes to him.

I picked him up from the airport from that trip and he was talking excitedly. "So, I decided, I'm just going to finish my bachelor's. I still have some of the GI Bill left. I want to take on bigger projects. I'm going to do it." I was hesitant at first. He works full time and our lives are busy. I knew it was going to be insanely difficult. "Okay. Do it! I'll support you."

He did. He went to school year-round for 3 years. Every evening, he was studying. Every weekend. Every spare moment. Part of the degree program was obtaining certifications and those were the worst. He'd study for months and on test days I would be a wreck. I'd be at home, waiting and praying for the text that he had passed. When he is stressed, I am stressed. When he is disappointed, I am disappointed. When he is happy, I am happy.

That is what his life has been for 3 years. Work, work, work. When his Capstone was accepted he exhaled. He didn't sleep that whole night, he was so excited. That evening, we went to Moes. Just the two of us. The kids had various practices, that's when things were normal.

I said, "You know, only 9% of Hispanic men have a 4 year degree and only 2% of people that marry as teens have a 4 year degree. So I was thinking, if we are somewhere in the 2%, we need to now figure out how to get in the 1%," I joked. He laughed, "I guess." "What would we do with like 10 million dollars?" I asked. He thought for a minute, "I don't know. Go on vacation." "Definitely, and maybe we could sign up for one of those Hello Fresh subscriptions. We are going to be so fancy."

I asked how he felt, if he was glad to be done and he said, "The thing is, I never thought would graduate from college in my life."

That made me happy for him and broke my heat all at the same time. His life is a great success story. His life is proof that it's never too late, that you can do anything. It's not just about finishing college either. He has sacrificed a lot in his life, he has had a huge amount of disadvantages, he has grown into an amazing husband, he is an attentive and loving father. He never gives up. Even when things are hard, even when they seem impossible - he always just puts one foot in front of the other. He never complains. He just does what needs to be done. I admire him so much. He inspires me.

Here's to you, my love! May all your dreams come true!