Ongoing Grace to the End of Covid-19

I recently just realized that I am not Wonder Woman—AGAIN. 

Do you know this pattern? The pattern of adding too much to your plate, and then realizing that you need to pull back?

That has never been more true than throughout COVID-19 for me. 

I have a 2 and an 11-year-old. For the first 15 months of the pandemic, my little one was home 24/7. My husband and I just shuffled him back and forth taking turns on who worked, along with a few hours of babysitting most weeks. Weekends and nights were filled with paperwork, to make-up for time lost playing Mom or Dad during the work week. We thought we would see some relief with day care coming back on board for us in June of this year. We have, but it's still tough a lot of the time.  

In the past few months, one or both of my kids have landed home for up to 10 days on several separate occasions due to being close contacts to a positive Covid case, day care closures due to Covid, a runny nose or mild cough that turned out to NOT be Covid but kept them home because of having even ONE symptom.  We are so unbelievably blessed and so fortunate to have still not contracted Covid in our family, even with all these scares. I completely get school and day care safety precautions too, but holy crap….is it hard trying to plan to do anything!!!

My ability to plan and schedule much of anything during this time has gone out the window repeatedly. I am sure all of you have had experiences through the pandemic of life not going as planned. That is the reason for my writing to you now. 

We have all had a really long haul.  There have been a lot of things that have wound up being controversial about this pandemic. One thing I think we can all agree on, however, is that we are ALL seriously fatigued.

 I know many have had delayed celebrations, canceled celebrations, work that gets put on the back burner, worked with kids at home, feeling overwhelmed and stressed about work, traveled to get yet ANOTHER Covid test, and waited for the results. Sadly, too many of us have lost someone we love. Our health care workers are burnt out. The anxiety, tension, frustration and fatigue that have LANDED ON US ALL is profound. 

Each time these things have happened to me I have felt a sense of OVERWHELM. Sometimes I just throw my hands up and say “oh well” and roll with it. Sometimes I have felt angry. Sometimes I want to scream and cry, sometimes I do cry. 

I don’t say this to have you pity me, I say it to let you know that you are NOT ALONE. 

Humanity has gone through something extraordinary in the past year and a half. This time that we are living in will be remembered for generations to come.   

So, if you feel like you are on edge. If you are just so tired of life STILL not being back to normal. Please give yourself some GRACE.

If you have found yourself eating junk food, having no energy for anything, feeling restless and on edge, or turning to those “crappy coping skills” you wish you didn’t turn to….please be gentle with yourself.  

Allow yourself time to rest. Allow yourself time to feel whatever it is that you need to feel. Remember that if normal stress is bothering you…..this pandemic is still riding beneath all of it. You are feeling the stress of regular daily life AND this pandemic. We all are. 

We are carrying this collective energy, this fatigue TOGETHER. We’ve got to hang in there. We are almost to the end of this thing. We are going to get there, as a people, we will get to the end of this dark time.  You MUST believe that. I must believe that. WE ALL MUST BELIEVE THAT.

I am actually going to correct myself from my original statement at the start of this post. I believe  YOU ARE Wonder Woman or Superman. So am I, we all are. What we have gone through together is nothing short of miraculous. So, give yourself some grace, till we get to the end. WE WILL get to the end. 

Have fun learning about all the wonderful and amazing parts of you.

With Grace,

Shelby