The Last Few Months at Home – How are YOU Doing?

Where does one even start? Short of overwhelmed, which seems almost contradictory since we were mostly under a stay-at-home order for what felt like forever, I’m not sure how else to describe it.

Mentally, I’m exhausted, if you want the blunt end of it.

While there aren’t as many places to go and things to do, there is a constant mental overthinking of everything. Having everything suddenly yanked from your plate is freeing in one sense, but dealing with the fallout from that is hard as well.

Having time by myself is something I love (and need) – don’t get me wrong, I love my family – but quiet isn’t especially happening when one is surrounded and there really isn’t space to go to be by yourself and your thoughts.

Now with everyone locally trying to figure out what they are going to do school, there are so many people asking for homeschool advice. And I want to help (and am as best I can), but at the same time I am trying to balance getting everything set up for our own upcoming year.

Did I mention feeling exhausted?

I am reading through some of my old posts, especially THIS ONE, and reminding myself that this is a new year – new opportunities for learning and growth – and trying to relax.

We have so many exciting things coming up soon:

• our oldest returning from her (more than) year-long adventure with Mercy Ships
• McKenna starting her SENIOR YEAR (gulp) and all that entails
• a GREAT co-op group for Zachary in literature and chemistry
• the boys swimming – we hope!!

There are a lot of things I can be frustrated about. But I have to choose to focus on the good. It can be a struggle.

Part of my issue (I know) is that there are still so many uncertainties in our schedule – as in our calendar is still WIDE OPEN. That is so foreign to me. It isn’t always busyness for the sake of being busy, but I will admit to breathing a sigh of relief when the boys started back with their evening practices a few weeks ago and the house was just s.i.l.e.n.t.

It was a brief moment of wonderful.

If it’s any consolation to the rest of you, I didn’t pick up any new hobby over our stay-at-home time, I didn’t plant a garden, I gained weight – essentially, I feel as though I was the anti-thesis of productive. On the other hand, I did come up with a fabulous muffin recipe (see weight gain) and conquered some levels of Candy Crush (now deleted from my phone).

Things will ease back into normal (I mean, goodness, Costco had some samples the other day – we must be getting back to normal in some ways, right?) and life will settle back in, I know it will.

So in the meantime, I’ll take a deep breath and keep plugging along.

How are YOU doing?