The stories we tell ourselves

Quarantine Week 4: Vol. 1
In Which the Children Have Had Enough
 

"I miss school," my teenager said to me yesterday, and -- after I recovered from my shock --  I realized just how much all of my kids were struggling during this time of self isolation. 

He'd wandered into my office late yesterday morning after a Zoom conferenece with his Algebra class, to tell me how much he loved his teacher. I guess she was telling them how much she missed all the goofy things they'd do in her classroom and it seemed that he missed those interactions that a month ago, he'd taken for granted. 

That's when he told me how much he missed school, and even though he's never been an "I hate school" kind of kid, I expressed surprise. 

"I miss my friends," he told me. "School's the social event of the day." 

The kid is bored. How many times can he go outside and toss a lacrosse ball at a pitchback? Yesterday, he organized his little closet and this morning he left to go for a run before 8am. 

He's not the only one of my children struggling with being trapped here with me and siblings. 

My older daughter quietly took to her room for the night after dinner. I knocked on her door as I passed her room at one point to check in on her, but she clearly didn't want to be checked on. She just wanted to be alone.

My younger daughter would love the luxury of even having a room to disppear into for the night. The room that had been hers before she graduated from college and moved out had morphed after she left into my teenager's basement hangout, complete with beer signs and LED lights he'd tacked to the walls. 

While my daughter has reclaimed her bed in that room, it's still being used during the day by her older brother, who also lacks a dedicated space in this house. Instead, he's bunked on an IKEA futon in a smaller side room of the basement that doesn't even have a door to close. He uses the bigger room down there during the day to take work calls and stream shows at night on the tv.

"It's a public space," my daughter reminded me this morning as she tried to make a pitch to take one of the cars and escape to her apartment in Northern Virginia for a few days. 

During my weekly Zoom happy hour with college friends last night, one of the gals said her daughter, who's also a recent college grad, tried to leave the safety of her family cocoon in Portland, Oregon to spend a few days in her apartment in LA. "I told her she could go but then I wouldn't be able to let her come back home," our friend told us. 

While that made perfect sense last night, when I had to say the same thing to my own child this morning, it seemed really harsh. 

These poor kids. Here they are, freshly launched into the world with new jobs and apartments, thinking they were on a certain path, only to have the coronavirus put up a big fat DETOUR sign, sending them back to live with their families. 

Up until now, I've treated my adult children like they were children, who I could tell what to do and how to feel and cut up some fruit for them and they'd be fine. I was more concerned about how all of us living together to ride out this pandemic was affecting MY life. The cooking. Cleaning. Endless food shopping. 

But today I'm reminded that, in the immortal words of Wonderama's Bob McAllister, kids are people, too. 

This isn't easy for anyone. And coming home to your mommy's house for her to cut up some fruit for you and tell you to vacuum the kitchen is probably not where a 27 year old man saw himself at this stage of the game. 

It's nice to puzzle together and watch Schitt's Creek together, but I think it's also important that we also value each other's personal space and emotional well being. 

I told my daughter this morning that I was sorry she was struggling, and that running away for a few days wasn't really going to change anything. "You'll just be coming back to the same situation," I said, and she nodded teary eyed.

I reminded her that, although some day this would end, there's no solid light yet at the end of our tunnel. "It's too soon to lose your shit," I told her, which is something I've been telling myself over the last month. It would be really easy to listen to that voice complaining inside my head and spiral into a weeping pile on the floor. Maybe that's just another version of my go-to sweeping of issues under the rug, but I think in this case, it's effective.

My dad called a little while later for his daily check in, and I reported that the natives were getting restless. "You have to put a grin on your face," he advised, and I thought it was interesting that he and I were doling out the same advice to our kids. 

But I think in this situation, it is the best advice there is. You have to make the best of the situation and remind yourself that it's not forever. 

"This, too, shall pass," my dad said, and I'm holding onto that nugget for dear life.

xoAmy