Everything is weird. Up and down and up and down. Stuff is closed and then opened and now closed again. School was remote, then in person, now it’s a hybrid–in person every-other-week, one-day-a-week. So much chaos. And although we’ve done our best to keep on keeping on, we are now collectively exhaling a long held breath. We learned about how we got here and made decisions on where we wanted to go. We made signs and we marched. We fundraised. And CO turned out. But today we finally found out that the nation turned out too. We are, to say the least, relieved. We are not alone.
This morning, when we picked a cake out at our favorite bakery, we asked to have Biden Wins! written on it. A few minutes later, the woman who carried it back out with the words stenciled in blue was crying. This was how she learned that Biden won. Our cake. She was not upset, she was relieved. And she was crying. We drove our cake home, honking in solidarity with people waiving flags on street corners and smiling with renewed optimism about what we are moving toward.
Riley turned eleven and the family celebrated, but he didn’t have a party. Due to restrictions on group events (which our family already exceeds), Riley has had individual play date parties complete with bagels and cupcakes. Even with this though, some people are declining to join, citing pre-exisiting conditions or another need to self isolate. These are also our friends who are not coming back to school at all this year. Friends that we probably won’t see for quite a long time in person.
We trick-or-treated, but not with friends this year. Emmett was a hybrid Sultan/Medusa; Asher was a Star Wars clone captain; Tessa was the headless horseman; and Riley was a soul reaper. We carved pumpkins and decorated our house, but we didn’t get to go to a Halloween party. Still, the candy haul was ginormous. We had to wait four days to sort and organize after the candy had been quarantined, but it was worth it. Between the four of us, we should have enough candy for the next 3-4 years.
We’ve been rock climbing, creating at our makerspace, taking drawing lessons, and spending time at the museum. Tessa’s been working hard at her Harry Potter art classes and Riley’s excelling at archery classes; Emmett performed as the Sultan in a musical Aladdin and as Doug in Descendants, and he’s taking classes to perform in the Music Man in the spring; and Asher’s been working hard at piano and playing a ton with his friend, Jack, next door. We’ve worked to retain normalcy in our routines. Still, we miss school (yes, we miss school), we miss or normal camps and lessons, and we miss not always being around each other. (We REALLY miss not always being around each other.)
Now, however, we are more optimistic about what’s coming up. We will eat our cake today and cheer. But we know that there is still work to do, and we choose to show up to do the work because this is our world. And the world is what you make it.
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