These days, I’m missing respite.
We live several hours from our nearest relatives and have a spotty social network in our area (life is busy, and it’s hard to make new friends post-college), so each time we added to our family, it was with the assumption we’d be doing the parenting by ourselves.
Mostly, we have. The Chaplain and I figured out how to ask each other for what we needed to keep our tanks from running empty, and we made it work. That was when I had out-of-the-house activities a couple of times a week, and so did the Chaplain. Those out-of-the-house options narrowed to one during the pandemic: The Long, Solitary Walk.
If it had to be just one thing, the Long Solitary Walk is the best. But there comes a time in an introvert’s life when she just wants to be home alone. And when everyone has to stay home all the time, that just isn’t happening.
Last week, the Chaplain came home, saw my face, and offered to take the kids to the pool and leave me home.
It may have been my first time home alone since lockdown started.
You have seen How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, recommended across social media and on every list of books about racism. In the weeks after George Floyd, it felt like reading Kendi’s book was the action point to start with.
Back in February, our family left for Tobago.
I brought my DSLR camera with me. The autofocus had become a little unreliable, but not bad enough for me to do anything about it.
The first day of our vacation, it stopped working completely. I was able to take a couple of photos, and then it refused to do anything further.
I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast recently and was introduced to the idea of a happiness bell curve.
According to the research, we hit the peak of our unhappiness (or the trough of our happiness) in our late 40’s. Which means if I’m not already in it, I’m cruising towards the pit of despair.
Woke: as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. (source: Wikipedia).
Even if you know what “woke” means, you may still wonder if YOU are woke. And with current events, you may be feeling guilty and confused and wanting to be woke, and not sure how to make it happen.
Deep breath.
The beauty of this idea is the part where it is a “continuing awareness.”
