Things are weird. It’s Monday and I am at work, the kids are at school, but only for one day this week. I sent them today only so they could pack up all of “their things” and bring them home, because for the first time that I can remember schools are closing down for a minimum of three weeks, and life as we know it is kind of coming to a screeching halt. It’s weird.
I’ve pondered all weekend on what is happening and how everyone is acting in response to it and where my family and I fall in the middle of all this, and here’s what I’ve came up with for me and mine.
I, 100 percent, and am not an over-reacter in situations like these. I always tend to lean on the side of the government or people in charge completely over-reacting and even possibly distracting. I am not scared of the corona virus, and probably wouldn’t have made the drastic decisions that have been made if I were in charge, but y’all seriously thank God that I am not in charge for this and many other reasons. Ha. I do understand the threat to the immunocompromised and elderly, and we will definitely be keeping our germs to ourself during this time. Before the message came that school would be closing, and we were just anticipating that call, I was a bit irritated and hoped that it wouldn’t happen. I have to say, though, when I got the message that school was closing for 3 weeks, I was instantly kind of excited.
So, Saturday I had a conversation with my son that stemmed from him having a horrible basketball game, getting mad at himself and having a horrible attitude on the court because of it. It was probably the first time we had this exact conversation and somewhere in my infinite wisdom I was spitting out😂, came the quote thats been told to me many times, “life is 1 percent what happens to you, and 99 percent how you react to it.” So, when the basketball conversation was over, I realized I had just preached to myself and that’s exactly how we were going to handle the hand we are all being dealt right now.
The decision has been made. School is closed for at least three weeks, we are likely to see an extension on that, and likely to experience more regulations on being out and about in public, and other than being a small business owner and worrying about business during this time, I am excited for this time with my kids.
You see, with three boys, much like all of you with your kids, we haven’t had a day off of some sort of practice or extracurricular since last summer. It’s like that every year. We sign up for it. We love it. It’s literally what I dreamed about when I thought of being a mom. We’ve been doing it for years now., and I wouldn’t trade assignee thing for it. We get a summer break, but it’s filled with camps, schedules, practicing, preparing for the next seasons, and sure some vacation time. We’ve never once been handed, “Hey here’s a three week break, don’t come to school, practice, or go in public if not necessary. Don’t gather with multiple people. Stay home and stay away from everyone and everything.” There’s always social pressure to do more, take the kids more places, do more things, see more people, make sure we see our friends, the kids friends, visit family and so on. While I am a fan of all of the above, it’s entirely too much sometimes, and it’s hard to find the cut-off line. The place where we say, “no more.” But, here it is. Wrapped in a horribly ugly, virus-like, package.
So, here’s what I am claiming: a God-given break. A “break” like none other I’ve ever experienced and more than that, one my kids may never experience again. While worry exists in my adult mind of work, business, and logistics, and while I’ll be praying we stay healthy, our friends and family stay healthy and that this whole sickness dies off as quickly as roared in here, we are going to embrace the break.
We are going to get dirty, play outside, cook our favorite meals, watch our favorite movies, build fires and look at the stars. We’ll go camping and fishing and hunting (turkey is almost in season😏). We’ll be ridiculously silly and laugh as much as possible. We’ll have no expectations of mastering skills, but I have full confidence that things will be learned way beyond the scope of a classroom or ball practice. Y’all, it’s baseball season, America’s Favorite Pastime, and I CAN NOT wait for some baseball games, but this break is going to go by so fast and life will be back to normal in the blink of an eye. We’ll play baseball in the yard, throw the football, probably even tackle, and play basketball, too. We have groceries, but not stock piled. We’ll probably even catch our own fish and have a fish fry. I have lysol, but the same bottle I had from last year most likely. We’ll go outside, play in the dirt and get fresh air. It’s worked for us for years now, and I’m banking on it continuing to. I fully plan to make memories that my boys will remember forever. I hope when they are 30 they’ll be able to tell their kids “in 2020 we had a COVID outbreak and schools were closed for weeks.. guess what we did.” I even hope that sentence is followed by, “you probably shouldn’t try this, but when we were stuck at home we did for COVID we did (fill in the blank full of stupid boy decisions).”
I think, just maybe, social distancing is what we’ve all been praying for, and God is granting us a remarkable opportunity here.
We are going to embrace the break for what it is, because it’s weird, but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt and life is ALL about how we REACT.
The Immori Board 