How it’s going, week 50

Somehow, despite not being one of the millions of people mourning a loved one taken by covid; nor boiling my tap water in the dark to survive a Texas weather disaster; nor living in or fleeing from a war-torn country; nor wondering how to survive financial ruin brought on by collapse of my small business; nor being audited, indicted, impeached, investigated or publicly derided, I managed to spend several days this week feeling like a total cactaprickle.

I was bored.  I felt trapped.  My favorite out-of-the-house haunts are off-limits.  Unlike the rest of the people on the internet, I don’t have a sustainable, rewarding hobby bringing richness to my quarantine.  I’m tired of the limited songs I know how to play on the piano.  I don’t know how to paint.  I can’t sew.  And when endless Pinterest scrolling convinced me how hard can it be? I found some fabric, traced around my favorite sweater, and went to work sewing myself an artisanal, hand-crafted, diy top, in which I promptly sewed the sleeve inside out and then stabbed myself with a seamripper trying to fix it, at which point I abandoned the project with a bloody hand to find a bandaid.  

So that was fulfilling.

I finally took the long-overdue step of finding some large stylish baskets to corral all our many blankets, to keep conveniently but neatly nearby the couches, in a cozy and inviting, on-trend hygge way...and my offspring are so fascinated by them that they dump the blankets all over the floor and sit in the baskets themselves.  And now I have more blankets on the floor than I even knew we owned.  (And these are not toddlers, people.  We’re talking tween- and teenagers.  Abandon all hope now, parents of little ones.)

And it’s February.

And my options are maddeningly limited.  I should get out of the house, go antiquing or something.  Oh wait.  I could take a road trip and meet up with a friend.  Nope.  Coffee shop?  Uh-uh.  Friendly get-together.  No.  Field trip.  The mall.  I could take up piano lessons.  No, no, and no.

At least I’m old and this era only represents one-fortieth of my life.  For my kids that jumps to one tenth or even one-eighth of their life, and that in their impressionable and unforgettable developmental years.  

Years from now, when I’m dead and gone, they’ll get together and reminisce about the pandemic of 2020/21, how they were trapped in the house with a pricktacactus mother and how they’ve never recovered.  Maybe they’ll laugh about how crazy old Mom was.  

This picture reminds me so much of the picture of Lizzy from seven years ago, below

Circa February 2014

And then their own kids will thwart their last attempts to be stylish and cozy, and they too will dump out their hygge-inspired oversized baskets all over the living room.

And in that day, I hope they can get coffee with a friend and then go antiquing together.  Because that’s more fun than going crazy alone.

Invaluable support bunny.