Pioneers

So, how are you doing in this brave, new world? I am so lucky to have a bevy of other moms and women to ponder this question with over wine on Wednesday nights. This week’s crew came to the screen from various hiding places (cars, garages, closets) and with several guest starring children, who made the call that much sweeter.

The conversation was all over the place and went on for hours. Basically, we’ve decided this: We are in unprecedented times. This is a wacky world. We’re pioneers, and we make the rules.

Sometimes, that means having a glass of “wine with DeWine” at 2 p.m. on a weekday, or everyday… As a pioneer lady living in a modern world, I’m feeding my flock many times a day, pushing the homeschooling and showing up online for video chat meetings for work.

Sometimes that means eating great all day, doing your workout and then binge-eating cookies after a nice Zoom chat with your tribe. Sometimes it means words come out of our mouth that we never thought we’d have to say out loud, as our children also struggle to fill the hours and days.

Almost every day, I admit it, I lose my cool at LEAST once, but more often, three or four times. I cycle through moods like a teenage girl, and, yesterday, I wasn’t above crying.

I had to take myself to the bath with candles, a mixed drink and Ella Fitzgerald crooning jazz. It. was. lovely.

Today, I had a bit of a hangover, but newfound peace. There’s no right or wrong way to get through Quarantine 2020. OK, well, actually, there is, if you don’t do the quarantine part. That would be WRONG. But I see you, momma over there with your kids in different grades and your obligations to work or your frustration with the unemployment site. I see you, essential working momma, who disrobes on the porch, in the garage or just inside the door every day to avoid exposing your family to the virus. I see you, wherever you are, doing your best and working all angles to get yourself and your family through this time.

If those schedules on Facebook stress you out, ignore them. If your kids want to make their fourth PBJ of the day instead of eating your beautiful lasagna for which you sacrificed the last of the cheese to make, fine. If you just can’t begin to think of the fact that we will have our kids home for another month (here in Ohio,) but instead can only look day to day, I get that!

The point is, we’re doing this thing. We may, at times, feel powerless or defeated or chubby as all get out, but we’re OK. We’re doing the right things for the right reasons. Our kids are going to remember the best parts of this, and I sure do hope they forget about the times I lost my cool and the times you lost yours.

Because we’re all just pioneers, finding our way toward an unknown future and making history, one day at a time.