70 Days of Lockdown

It has been seventy days since we were told to stay inside. Anyone who left home without a reason was either questioned or threatened with force. While restrictions have gradually eased throughout these months, we are still under “lockdown” today.

I remember my neighbor telling me, as we stood on our balconies and called back and forth, “They’re saying this will go until June.” Well I had never heard this, but the mere thought seemed completely impossible. To spend three solid months in our apartment with social life, basic grocery shopping and our business ALL going completely online… well, my pre-Coronavirus-brain could not even fathom this idea.

Yet here we are. We have grown and changed and continue to adapt. Tomorrow is June 1^st. And we’re still in lockdown.

Our kids have been inside our apartment for 70 days. They have not seen any friends in person. While they were homeschooling, we had regular video calls with their teachers and classmates, and it eased the social deprivation a bit. Then last week we somehow completed the semester and they “graduated” from PreK 4 and 1^st Grade, and the “new normal” rhythm of schoolwork and video calls disappeared.

It took me a few days to realize that my son and I were both mourning the loss of purpose and relationships. Each morning he wakes up asking “What’s the schedule for today?? When do I get to play Minecraft?” Minecraft is all he can think of; it’s his coping mechanism, his comfort. It’s good and it’s bad. He may be learning while he plays and finding a source of joy amid the monotony, but it robs him of the natural desire for people, for personal contact. He had abandoned his legos. And this concerned me the most.

I decided to arrange a video “playdate” with one of his local school friends. Five of his school friends’ families have decided to move away in the past few weeks so I reached out to one of those who lives here permanently. This afternoon Little Man had a video call with his classmate, and they ended up building legos together for an hour. My heart melted to watch these little humans dealing with huge change in their worlds. I believe that one of the best things I can do for our kids is to encourage resilience by allowing boredom and discomfort with reality, helping them to find ways to process and build relationships through it. I have no idea how a 7-year-old mind works, but I am sure that this will be one of the most formative times in my son’s life.  I just pray and pray for wisdom as we walk through it.

Speaking of resilience, I was bragging to friends last week about how “fine” I am… How I am so at peace despite all of my triggers being pushed in the biggest ways. Yup, I was pretty proud of my emotional health.

Well, lo and behold, on Friday I started experiencing chest and back pain. The discomfort worsened throughout the weekend till Saturday night when I confessed to my husband that I felt tightness in my chest and thought I had COVID. After calling a friend who got me on the phone to a doctor, I learned that I was experiencing dyspepsia … ulcer-type-symptoms … She told me it must be the stress.

So here I was, all “fine” and “at peace”, but my insides were a mess from worry (and seventy days of caffeine overload), and way too much of the news.  I was embarrassed of my lack of self-awareness. But I was relieved that I wasn’t that rare Covid-19 patient who (in my imagination) displayed zero symptoms and died of a sudden collapsed lung.

In reflection, I think we can forget just how enormous and unprecedented the stressors in our world are right now, and how much they actually affect us.

We are going through our normal day (and “normal” is redefined for us every week or so), conducting meetings, making lunch, and getting the air conditioner fixed. But under the surface is this constant murmur of pings and beeps and news reports, reminders that all is not well in the world out there. There are millions of tragedies occurring, large and small scale, there is blame-shifting, there is corruption and there is overwhelming injustice.

My best days are when I focus in on my tiny world, when meals are ready on time and bedtime stories are told, and when my husband and coworkers drive to distribute food to migrant workers walking to their villages along highways and railway tracks. The best days are when I catch up with a friend and we get to connect like we used to, or when Little Man has a call with his classmate and comes away feeling that one day, things will be “normal” again.

Because we can only know and do so much. What we can do, we absolutely must. (We cannot live with our heads in the sand.)  But the moment that I try to carry one bit more than I am meant to carry, that’s when I land up with indigestion.

“Therefor do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34