Tuesday morning, I woke to the outside sounds of birds chirping, the wind blowing, and Henry saying, “I have to use the potty!”
The maiden voyage of the tent went very well, I’m happy to say. I wondered whether it would be the kind of thing where the kids woke up halfway through the night and had a total freakout, but honestly they both slept about as well as they ever do. Maybe we should do this more often.
I let them hang out in the tent for a while, though did announce that I had to take it down so it doesn’t kill the lawn. That plan got me covered in a chorus of boos, and I figured I’d let them have it up for the morning and take it down after lunch.
It was another busy day on the work front. I had a webinar to deliver, a bunch of administrative odds and ends to handle, and tons of emails to respond to. Lately it feels like I’m just jumping from one thing to the next to the next constantly, and if I ever take a second to stop, all momentum ceases and I just want to faceplant.
I took a break to put the tent away, and as I finished, I realized that what sat before me was a perfect metaphor for how I was feeling.
It feels sometime like my time is the bag, and all the stuff I have to do in a given day is the tent that I can’t quite make fit. I know this is a common feeling among parents, or grown ups of any kind. There are never enough hours in the day. But whereas last week I was able to crush and cram that tent back in the bag (albeit tightly), on this day it wasn’t even close.
There are things that have been on my to do list for weeks now. Some work, some personal, and all the kinds of things that I keep saying, “today I’m going to focus and get those done,” and all the kinds of things that end up getting nudged aside as tons of random unexpected things lurch into the day.
Some of it is functional…regular parenting and working stuff taking up time in the day. I know we’re all struggling so hard with that balance, trying to do an acceptable job of two very different things all at once. I’d be lying, though, if I didn’t say that everything happening in the world didn’t slow me down sometimes, too. It is a distraction and it becomes harder and harder to pretend everything is OK in the face of societal unrest and a powerful pandemic that hasn’t gone away either.
Particularly in the early days of COVID, I feel like it was easier to just focus inward. We were in emergency shutdown mode and by necessity we all looked intently at presevering the health and well being of our own families. That is still going on, but it’s getting harder and harder to ignore events.
The images of unrest and violence are difficult to digest. Society feels on the edge, and that undeniably affects my focus in my day to day work. I’m not sure I can remember another time when I’ve felt more distracted. Before now, the worst I can think of was 1998 and 1999 when I spent way too much time reading online speculation about the new Star Wars prequel. “Who is this Jar-Jar Binks?!?” I would wonder. “What is this evil Trade Federation up to?” Boy, what a colossal waste of time that was.
But this is for real. It’s about equity and the future of our society, and while I’m nervous, I remain hopeful that real positive change can come. I wake up each day hoping we will see some de-escalation and actual dialogue about a path forward. And that is what we all need to advocate for. This is not an issue that force and violence will solve. We’re going to have to find a way to get from this place of struggle to a place where real substantive change can happen. And I believe it will.
In many ways, in this moment America also is basically that medium-sized bag trying to contain a very large tent. We have enormous challenges. COVID, equality, economy…these are all big issues we are being forced to confront at the same time. We are being stretched and forced to contain so many things all at once. But it all fit in there at some point. I’m sure it can all fit again.
