The new year is here, and it would normally come with overcrowded gyms and long lists of resolutions. Last year I wrote about leaving resolutions behind and creating a purpose. Little did I expect what the year ahead had in store for all of us. By March a lot of those ideas went out the window. My new “purpose” was to SURVIVE. Looking back it seems like I achieved a lot, but at points, it felt overwhelming. Looking into the new year all I want to do is take it easy and make the best of our time before we start transitioning back to what the new normal will be.
Goodbye, 2020.
What a crazy, long, and exhausting year! I have been able to share the load with my husband, who has been working from home for the last 10 months (yes, he was one of the first to do so). I am lucky to have as much support from him since having both kids at home is more than a full-time job. But there have been moments where we have felt drained. Days blended together and weeks turned into months, with only weather changes to tell us that the seasons were shifting.
We were also very fortunate to relocate to Florida for one month. And I use the word relocate because it really wasn’t a vacation. Traveling in the summer to a new home with so many uncertainties was a big endeavor. Lots of packing, planning, and cleaning while constantly monitoring COVID numbers and restrictions was a lot to handle. A great change of scenery but not how I had imagined our summer would go.
Fall gave us a new semester of distance learning. Thankfully we had a lot of lessons learned from the spring and the transition for our boys was not very hard. We managed to create a family routine and schedule that provided space and breaks for all of us. We have also taken advantage of our days off from school to enjoy the outdoors while keeping all the precautions and observing the guidelines recommended by the CDC.
The winter holidays came and left. We adjusted our traditions, created new ones, and enjoyed a different kind of Christmas without family and friends. It was hard, but the kids had a lot of special moments. They enjoyed a different and more quiet season, with less pressure to dress up and overly packed schedules.
How will we approach 2021?
I am thankful to see fewer articles about New Years’ resolutions this year. It is refreshing to have a change of mindset and to really see that we are becoming more mindful of the choices we make. So when it comes to the idea of how to approach 2021, I think that we should really take it slow. We are still in the middle of the pandemic. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. With the vaccination plan underway we now have a broad idea on how transitioning back to social life would look like and how would the timeline be. But this is still a marathon and we have a long way to go.
So, should we think about a purpose for 2021? If you ask me, definitely no! We are still in survival mode. Working on the wellbeing of our families, while there is a growing risk of contagion and some of us will still be unable to see extended family for a couple of months. We still need to parent to the best of our abilities. To provide emotional support for our kids who continue to show us how resilient they are but who also show extreme frustration at moments without really understanding why. We need to work on our relationships, function at work, get groceries, and somehow feed everyone. We have a school year to finish and a summer to figure out. Families are mourning the loss of loved ones and every day more and more families are experiences the reality of the virus.
If you ask me, that is enough to handle without adding any ambitious plan. Yes, it will be great to create, to have personal growth, to discover new places. But I think that we should approach that in an organic way without vision boards or written plans. After all, most of our 2020 planners made it to the recycling bin with lots of empty pages.
Self-care is key.
If there is a time to give ourselves a break, it is now. This is a moment to breathe when possible and do as much self-care as possible, even if it’s only 10 minutes at a time. Read if you can, go for a run or do a workout, take a bath, listen to a podcast. Do whatever it is that makes you smile.
Squeeze in a break when you can, because you will need it. Give your partner a break. Give your kids a movie night and do a quick at-home dinner date with your significant other. Try to find those spaces that have been lost or forgotten in the past 10 months and recreate them within our current reality. And also, remember that we will go back to old routines so make sure to safely enjoy family time while exploring the outdoors. Because in 10 years when our kids look back, that is the one thing they will remember about the COVID-19 pandemic.
