Perpetual Ruminations

Safe Harbor in the Storm

A bit earlier in here tonight. As much as this is a blog, it's also become kind of a time log for me as well. The times I post in here are my time, but I usually log WDC time as well; I'm not going to do that anymore, it's irrelevant. My time, however, is kind of nice to log. It's a reflection I ca//n easily look back on and see how late it is before I get the kids to bed and to sleep, so I can have my little bit of peace and quiet time.

Tomorrow it's back to school for the girls, but online until next year. My wife also returns to work, but she is working yet a different time from before. She was doing evenings, going in about three and home at about midnight. Then they switched her to days, so it was in at seven-thirty and back home at four. Now, with the schools not having classes, she goes in and does a nine to five-thirty shift.

It's been a lot of changes over the last couple of weeks. In all, we all handle it pretty well, but my youngest daughter does not do well with changes. It was a big adjustment when my wife switched from evenings to days, and she was finally starting to get more accustomed to it when Thanksgiving break came along. So, no school since Wednesday and my wife home since Thursday, another big change for her. Normally it would be easier with school starting back up tomorrow but instead, it's distance learning until after the first of the year another big change.

I know she's struggling with it, and I also know it's part of what's been keeping her from going to bed at night. It's also a lot to do with her mood swings, especially tonight. I'm hoping she and I can have a nice chat tomorrow so she can get some of this out. She holds so much in, but sometimes if I talk to her and understand a bit of what's going on, she opens up and it comes flooding out. It helps, she still has to adjust and still has a difficult time, but she does better knowing someone understands it's difficult for her and understands where she is at.

We all have suffered through the year with the pandemic. We lost hours and wages, we had to stay home and change our way of life, we had to change and adjust almost daily. For some of us, it meant relocating and starting all over, for others it's personal loss and grief. But we are adults, we have lived through other crises and we know we will come out the other side. That things will change, that's a given, we've seen that with 9/11 as well as other historic events.

But our children have not seen anything like this. For them, this is bigger than life and tomorrow is unkown. They have no point of reference to look back to, only an unknown future that so far this year has changed constantly. Children need stability, in the home and at school, this year, they have not had anything stable in life. It's not anyone's fault, it's life, but we can take a step back and try to understand how difficult this is for them, stop fretting over how difficult it is for us,and understand it's tenfold for them.

Please, take a few minutes every week, every day, as often as is needed to remind them, we are still here, we will see them through this and out the other side. Give them a safe harbor in this global hurricane of change we are living in.