by Liz
I remember rolling my eyes (well figuratively at least!) at a playgroup in late February when a couple of people responded to ‘how are you?’ by sharing overwhelming anxiety about the impending doom of ‘the virus’.
How life has changed since then! On 16 March I found myself unemployed having resigned from my role shortly before – the irony isn’t lost on me that the driving factor in my dissatisfaction was not feeling fully validated in working from home – and now I see my former boss blogging on ‘working mum’ about the WFH culture we are now entrenched in. Still, the decision was the right one for me and my family. Removing the pressure to juggle work and ‘homeschooling’, and providing some time and space to consider what might be next.
With kids at 3 and 5, I feel I have pretty much lucked out in all of this – they are often great independent players, and I believe play is really what they need most of, so it’s a win-win (at least some of the time). And yes, I have finished painting my fence which I started 2 years ago and there is one piece of wallpaper up on the landing (my son did ask at 7.30 this morning if we could finish it, but I said I needed coffee first).
But as much as I can feel we are currently ‘ok in all of this’ and come up with different ideas each day for what my life will look like ‘eventually’, this definitely feels like a long pause, a long inhalation of breath and I get a bit scared when I think of the speed that things could start again, and how quickly I could get left behind (or my children for that matter). I’m reminded of why I chose to work in the first place when parenting the small people, since I can’t help myself but volunteer my time, and quickly I can struggle to balance it all.
So plough on we will, with lots of play, some sourdough (yes, I learned a new skill) and some dreaming and doing what we can to help others along the way.
