COVID, week 21 + time will tell
Time often feels so weird and messed up during this COVID-induced shelter-in-place, and this past week was no exception: last week feels like it was last year. It’s disorienting and super mind-boggling.
At any rate, the next school-year is fast approaching these days, though we still don’t know many of the details about what the day-to-day will look like or anything super granular. My incoming kinder has her assessment in a few days, which makes sense and doesn’t make sense simultaneously — how is my baby entering kindergarten? and how in the world do you get a bunch of kindergartners to “do school” online every day?! — but I guess time will tell.
I can’t recall much changing since last week around here in the past week (or week-ish), perhaps with the exception that California has passed the unenviable mark of having more than half a million COVID cases. I think I read that Florida also just surpassed that 500,000 mark, and that’s all before school begins in earnest everywhere in the next few weeks. Schools and colleges/universities opening for the academic year– however that looks, wherever you are — could potentially add another profound dimension to this ongoing pandemic, and shit, you want to talk about mind-boggling? Read people’s social media posts about what their kids’ schools (or colleges or universities) are doing for 20-21 and the decisions that families are making for their kids right now.
As humans, at least from everything that I’ve ever read on the subject of motivation, habit-building, culture-creating, training and mastery (related to sports or otherwise), I think everything I’ve read strongly suggests that we humans are no less than utterly terrible when it comes to navigating the unknown. We think we behave better than we actually do; we think we partake in less-risky behaviors than we actually do; and most of the time, it seems like we tend to believe that the worst of the worst, the really incredible stuff, won’t ever happen to us just… because it won’t. We are creatures of habit, we thrive on our routines, and not knowing answers or even probable answers to our dilemmas tends to unnerve us.
Of course, when you’re living (and working, and raising a family, and trying to have a normalish life, and so on and so on) through a pandemic, it feels like we’ve been treading water in the unknown –the very place that few of us operate well in!– for over five months now. The minutiae of otherwise normal, every-day life, like going to the grocery store, spending time with friends, attending school, or participating in activities of any shape or manifestation, suddenly now feel like they arrive equipped with a heavy, smothering calculus as to how and whether we should partake (and of course, that’s all in relation to what your local rules and restrictions allow or forbid).
When you’re living in a pandemic, and you’re making upwards of 35,000 decisions a day, it can be altogether suffocating when it feels like all.of.them could potentially be life-or-death.
COVID fatigue is real and profound, man, and it’s also really, really important to recognize it and act (or reframe our actions) accordingly. We can’t wish away this pandemic, though #45 (perhaps unsurprisingly) thinks that we can.
Living and making decisions in the many-shades-of-gray world that we’re in right now can be hard and exhausting. Despite when I complain about 20+ person parties at the beach, or how I think that people who don’t wear masks on narrow trails at ARP are telling all of us to GFY, I tell myself that it’s important to focus (or at the very least, hope) that most people are doing the right thing.
Maybe not though; instead, maybe this is a textbook case of toxic positivity.
I guess just like anything else related to all of this, time will tell. le sigh
I see you, and I feel you. Sending love. Hang in there.
On occupying time and settling mental unrest
#hope5kchallenge update. Ah, a wonderful reprieve of lovely news for a change! Today (August 5th) is the last day to donate to Hope’s Corner 5x5x5 fundraising challenge, and I’m so happy to see that not only have they surpassed their original $5,000 goal, they’re now at over $11,000! That’s so awesome! Thank you to everyone who has supported their efforts, and if you haven’t yet logged your 5k goal, it’s not too late to post it and donate here. Thanks again for your support.
Reading. Admittedly, in these last couple weeks before school begins, the kids and I have slowed down a bit on our reading (and staying up too late at night), so our reading has slowed down some. Since last week, I finished The Hate U Give and started Such a Fun Age. The Hate U Give was everything that I said last week — intense, heartbreaking, good, and so important — and I’m *almost* tempted to watch the movie portrayal for comparison. (I generally do one or the other — movie or book — but never both. I may make an exception). Such a Fun Age so far is riveting and also terrible in its own rite, though I’m not very far into it yet. I heard a CodeSwitch podcast that talked about it, so I’m looking forward to reading more.
Listening. I think I must have taken a break from podcasts in the last week because my history indicates I’ve only listened to Emily Halnon on Ali on the Run, talking about her California-to-Washington FKT attempt. (It’s a great episode though).
Running. The whole running world collectively seemed to lose its ever-loving-mind when Garmin got hacked a couple weeks ago, and things seem to be slowly coming online from the outage. Sometime in the last couple days, I finished a virtual challenge I started on June 8, RunLocal’s CaliforniaCoast 500. My kids were always super excited to look at the race maps with me and see “where” I was in California at any given time and to compare how I fared against other runners overall, other women, or other women in my AG. It’s kinda fun to think that I virtually ran 500 miles from early June to early August, from LA to SF. 🙂
The kids’ running is going pretty well, too, and the little one has posted two 2-mile runs already this week (and with minimal complaining, which is a major win in my book!). I think we’re in week 5 of the 10 week 5k training plan. Both girls will be participating in runshe.is.beautiful’s kids’ movement challenge this fall, and between that and the 5k training, I think they’ll be pretty content for a while. Just like anything, some days are easier than others in getting them out and running, but 99% of the time, they’re elated to have gone for a run when it’s all said and done.
And a friendly reminder: Janet’s clinic has its virtual open house on Saturday! I’m so excited for her to open her business and am all about spreading the love. 🙂
90 days (12 weeks, 6 days) until Election Day.
Stay healthy and safe, take care of yourself and others if you can, and keep reading and listening. xo