Parenting in the Time of COVID

I’ve heard therapists and psychologists speak talk about the “window of tolerance” in anxiety disorders. The idea is that we all have this particular sized window through which the stresses of our life flow. When the window is wide open, it’s easy breezy. Minor issues have so much space to pass through that they remain just that – minor inconveniences. Yet, when those minor shards keep coming and are accompanied by larger ones, the window opening narrows, and narrows, and narrows further. The ever-decreasing flow of air makes breathing harder and harder, until all that’s left is gasping.

So, we sit there, gasping at the little air that reaches our lungs, hoping and praying that something or someone can help widen that window a bit. And it does happen. Small inconveniences float away and the window widens ever so slightly. Yet, in the Time of COVID, the pressure of those shards is greater than it’s ever been, and the minor ones that float away are quickly replaced with other, more jagged shards. This continues as we slowly begin to suffocate.

It’s drowning without water.

A couple weeks ago, my son’s daycare had a case of COVID. Since they’re all two years old in his class, and thus unvaccinated, the daycare closed down for ten days. Then, last week, my daughter got COVID – and she was home for five days, my son for ten. Now, today, we found out that there was another positive case of COVID at daycare and they’ll be closing for another ten days.

Out of the first thirty-five business days of the year, I’ll be without childcare for thirteen of them. And, if when the childcare center reopens, there’s another case of COVID, it’ll be another ten day shut-down.

My window is nearly closed.

My son had a runny nose yesterday. After his sister having COVID, and despite him constantly testing negative and being isolated from her this entire time (after school activities were a blessing since his isolation started sooner by happenstance), I am panicking. I gave him three tests between last night and today, and, while I was hoping today the faucet would stop, it hasn’t. Or, it has, but just a little bit.

My daughter won’t get COVID again for a while, if at all. She’s fully vaccinated for her age, and now has a prior infection. It’s 99% most likely the Omicron variant, which means some protection from reinfection for about ninety days at least.

But my son… Nope. Neither he, nor I, nor his dad got COVID. We did everything right. Got boosted, kept my daughter isolated for her entire quarantine at home (her choice too). Cleaned. Lysol-ed. Opened the windows and kept to ourselves.

I’m not disappointed that he wasn’t infected. On the contrary, it’s a very good thing because dealing with a sick kid is not something I want to manage, and I would like him to get vaccinated before he has to negotiate this horrible virus, mild or not. That’s a way away. Even if he can start his vaccine regimen in March, it’ll be two months after the second shot plus two weeks when he’s fully vaccinated. So, let’s say early June – after cold and flu season has subsided and probably after mask mandates have ended.

I work from home. I have a wonderful agency that contracts with me and wonderful people that are kind and compassionate. But the truth is, having missed so much work, I’m hopelessly behind.

And yes, dear reader, I recognize that writing this is cutting into time that I could be working, but let me explain.

You see, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder and ADHD (well, ADD is more descriptive of my version). That means that my time is consumed by stress and worry and that the ability of my brain to do any one particular thing at any one particular moment is governed by both how anxious I am and how interested I am.

Right now, I’m interested in working. Right now, I’m writing to avoid the impending panic attack that I feel coming on and to get through the tears streaming down my face right now. I have no ability to do creative work when my brain has effectively closed off that portion of itself in favor of fight, flight, or, in my case, freeze.

My window is nearly closed.

I’m exhausted in ways that I haven’t been in a long time. Yes, last year was tough – especially when we were trying to sell the house and I was driving the kids around for hours in the car so people could come view it. But that stress was temporary. It was in the moment of the car ride and the time that came after. Once the kids were in bed, even if it was coming the next day too, I had some reprieve. And they both went to school or daycare, so again, I had some reprieve.

Right now, everyday is riddled with anxiety (and I know I’m not alone). Panic. Sheer and utter hopelessness and darkness so close that I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck quivering. The darkness that I have held off, fought off constantly, for the last good while… it’s at my door and it doesn’t need a key to get in.

I’m using all the tools that are available to me. But you know the one that I need the most?

Childcare.

Paid family leave.

Either will do, but childcare is more realistic, as elusive as it is.

We have a massive childcare crisis on our hands and have for a long time. The incredible amount of stress that finding, paying for, and managing childcare is overwhelming for parents of young children. And the two bits of assistance we got during the pandemic – the child tax credit payments and the refundable child care tax credits? Those are gone. G. O. N. E. Gone.

(Thank you GOP for making life much, much harder for working Americans under the guise of supporting Americans need to work.)

So, here I am. Typing to avoid falling down this deep, dark, and hard-to-escape-from well of stress and hopelessness. Trying to make sense of the challenges ahead and figure out plans that, well, are physically impossible to exist. Who wants to watch a kid who’s potentially been exposed to COVID? No one I know. Though, if you do, it’d be a super crazy lucrative business right now.

I’m tired. I’m so, so incredibly tired. And there’s not much flexibility on my husband’s front. He’s facing his own exhaustion and demons after discovering issues that I won’t discuss here (none of his own fault, thank you Navy).

But the truth is, the brunt of the panic and the loss and the worry and the exhaustion falls to me. Even when he helps to lighten the load, it’s still my load to carry, and it’s still my job and my mental health and my physical health that gets compromised for both our country’s inability to follow the evidence and provide numerous supports for parents and the needs of the Navy.

When the darkness overtakes me, I become numb. I function much better because I focus on survival needs and must-do’s. I can focus in because a switch has gone off on my emotional self. You’d think this a good thing, right? Yeah, not really.

Not at all.

If I hit that wall. If the darkness comes and settles in, then that’s it. It’s here for a while. It’s settled in and no amount of therapy or medication is going to get it to pack its bags quickly. New pits of pain open up and all of the years of healing that’s been done unravels. I don’t know why this happens to me. I don’t know why falling down this well means I go deeper every time it happens. But it does, and there’s no escaping that.

So, here I am again. Typing. To stop myself from falling into that hole and losing myself for a while. I have kids now, two of them, and a life that really is pretty content, even if it is painfully monotonous. Outside of this, I have the ability to understand, to completely comprehend that those fleeing moments of sadness are a chemical reaction to the challenges I have, and that doing some work in therapy or with additional meds can help me through. And, eventually, once the kids are older, more joy will fill those holes (as it really has with my daughter).

But today is today. And today is horrible.

Today is laden with stress and anxiety and overwhelm. Today I am defeated, though I haven’t yet lost the war.

I’m hanging in there, even if by a thread, and with my face right up to the edge of the window, fighting to breathe. Fighting for my life.

Please, God, or whatever out there has some hold on the universe and the course of events… Please. We’re so tired. Please, let this vaccine work. Let us get back to somewhat of a normal life again. I know it’ll never look the way it did before, but if daycare could be open more than 50% of the time, it would go a long way for many of us.

I can see hope amid the darkness, and that’s what I’m holding onto.

It’s been a year.

All right. It’s been about four years.

I recognize that I say this often as my blog posts tend to be few and far between, but I really do want to write more regularly. Writing, for me, has always been cathartic and helped me work through whatever emotion or frustration or hopeful hope I’ve been experiencing at the time.

Today is no different.

Today, I read an article on Axios that said the pandemic is finally under control. I scrolled further and came across an article in the Atlantic, “A One-in-a-Lifetime Chance to Start Over.”

As you can imagine, I got thinking.

This has been the most trying year-plus of my life. It wasn’t the darkest, or even, in some ways, the hardest, but it was, by far, the most exhausting, and the most changing……

Have you ever watched True Detective? Watch the first season and stop. I didn’t and regret it endlessly, except for one single scene.

In that scene, Vince Vaughn’s character is talking to the child of someone he killed (or had killed, I can’t remember). The boy is on a swing and understandably upset. Vaughn’s character says something to the effective of, “Sometimes, a thing happens, splits your life. There’s a before and after.”

Like Vaughn’s character, I have a bunch of those. Before and after we moved upstate as a child. Before and after Columbine. Before and After 9/11. Before and after my grandmother’s death. Before and after my mother’s divorce. Before and after I met my husband. Before and after my daughter was born. Moments that would come to define my life.

Before and after the global pandemic.

The difference is, this before and after has a middle too – a long one. Only now are we crawling out and picking up the pieces. This extended stress has been exhausting.

Thinking back, I remembered sending my kids an email when this all started. Here’s an excerpt of what I said:

Hello my loves,

I wanted to send you a message tonight to let you know how much I love you.

Things in the world are very scary right now. There’s a horrible virus that is making a lot of people very sick very quickly, and spreading in a way that we can’t tell who is ill. Some people may never get ill, despite getting the virus.

It’s scary because people we love like Nana are very susceptible to it. So am I, and so are you.

Things are unlike I’ve ever known them to be. Everything is shut down. The stores are closed. I’m working from home, but many people have lost their jobs. It’s so still outside that we have deer in the neighborhood – something very unusual indeed.

We are doing our best to keep you safe. I’m very scared myself, but never let you know that. Anne you keep calling it “the sickness” and you’re so sweet in how you want to make sure everyone gets well. I love that about you.

Today, we went on a rainbow hunt. Marty laughed and yelled the whole time. Anne, you brought your rainbow colored narwhal and we looked for rainbows in windows and on doors. We found so many! We even have our own though it’s a single line rainbow (we’ll have to make a brighter one tomorrow).

The two of you are the most important things in our world. Your father and I could not be happier. We are so lucky to be your parents, and to see you grow into the amazing people I know you’ll become.

Right now life is so frightening. It’s reminded me of what really matters. I close my eyes and wish for the day this is all behind us. I fear we’re just at the beginning.

I can’t wait until we’re back in the world again, when we can see Nana and go back to gymnastics. I love you both so much my silly beans. 

I cried the night I wrote this. My mom had found out that someone in the school where she worked had tested positive, and my mom was the one I was most concerned for. I lost my breath. I remember talking to Keith about how afraid I was and wondering what I should do, what any of us could do.

Less than a month later, my mom would be hospitalized with COVID pneumonia and I would be faced with one of my greatest fears: losing my mother.

I’m grateful for the excellent, dedicated, exhausted, and selfless medical care that she received. She survived – after 51 days, she came through. More than a year later though, she still feels the effects. I still get that pang in my chest when I think about it and can’t talk about COVID-19 and what it does to people without crying.

I know that we’re all so tired. So very tired. We’ve all experienced this global trauma to varying degrees. For some, it’s been a nuisance. It’s hindered their ability to travel or bar-hop or simply be conveniently unmasked. Yet, for others, like me, it’s a trauma that will live in my heart for the rest of my life.

I remember how much deer poop we found in the yard, and the day that I woke up to see them there. Watching the DOCUMENTARY only strengthened my confidence in climate change science. We saw what happens when we, as a species, simply stop destroying our home.

In more simpler terms, I learned very quickly what’s important to me.

Back to that Atlantic article. In it, you’re asked to draw a two-by-two matrix. The columns are your likes and dislikes. The rows are pre-pandemic and pandemic. The author, Arthur Brooks, asks you to wholeheartedly consider your answers.

Here’s mine:

	Likes	Dislikes
Pre-Pandemic	-Movies -Activities with the kids	-Commuting (i.e. the daily grind)
Pandemic	-Working from home -More time to recharge	-No travel -No seeing friends or family -No restaurants or movies

The pandemic taught me that I’m an introvert. I “recharge my batteries” with alone time. That’s hard to come by when you’ve got a husband and two little kids, and even harder when you’re committed to maintaining so many social and familial connections. The pandemic taught me that I’m happier with a smaller circle – and I’m honestly more capable of maintaining strong friendships that way. That’s not to say that I don’t like having more people around – it’s just that I enjoy a few close friends that I will share every single thing about my life with.

I also learned that the daily grind of a commute was incredibly draining for me. I don’t mean just the driving, but the complete chaos and disarray of always being on the go. Now, I walk Anne to school and Keith takes Marty to daycare. Then, we pick them up. Even on the days when I must manage both of them, it’s still a lot less hectic to manage home-daycare-school-home-school-daycare-home than it is to manage home-daycare-school-work-school-daycare-home. Plus, I can take fifteen minutes to prep dinner or pop the chicken into the marinade before leaving for pick-up rather than chaotically whipping up the fastest dinner humanly possible.

I’m more creative in the quiet. I’m more focused when I can turn off interruptions. My ADHD is much better managed. My stress level is dramatically, dramatically lower despite the workload. While my colleagues may not love me being out of the office, it’s been life-changing for me. Yet, I think all of that life-changing positivity is about to come to an unceremonious end.