When This is Over

When this is over...

I will not be the same person I was, when this journey began.

I will be less.

I will be more.

I will be contemplative and maybe a little shy, easing into life, on the other side of here.

I will be brave, in ways I haven't learned, yet.


When this is over...

I will have lost much.

I will have lost peace, sanity and time.

I will have lost old skin, habits, ideas.

I will have lost dreams, friends, family, love.

I will have lost my sense of direction, routines and the rules - unspoken, and not - that held up the walls of my world.

I will have lost my sense of place.

I will have lost the person I thought I was.


When this is over....

I will have found peace, space and time.

I will have found comfort in my own skin.

I will have found faith in myself, to hold up my own walls.

I will have found deepened friendships, stronger ties.

I will have found truth in odd places, a softening of frayed edges.

I will have found patience and grace, and the quiet that comes with doing nothing.

I will have found new ways to breathe.

On Not Wearing Pants

Welcome to Ginger Snaps and Other Things!

I have no idea what I'm doing, but I needed to do write-y things, so here we are.

We are in the middle of a world-wide pandemic: COVID19 is making global rounds, and life as we know it has ground to a halt:

My ginger-haired sons haven't been to school, been outside, or worn shirts since the middle of March.

I have no idea when they last brushed their teeth.

The pantry has been tidily organized and the downstairs toilet - the one connected to the Boy Cave - has been scrubbed to sparkling.

All of the clean laundry has been put away, even mine, which frankly, is freaking me out a little bit:

Where are my pants? Do I even NEED pants? I don't need no stinkin' pants. Pants are not pyjamas, and pyjamas are the greatest thing ever made.

Well, maybe after masks.

And gowns.

And gloves.

And those people out THERE, working, so the rest of us can stay home, stay safe.

Well.

That was a swing, huh? 

Sweetness and light and fa la la....followed by uncomfortable and hard and slightly terrifying.

S'pretty much how I'm rolling these days, as I imagine many of you are: I'm fine, I'm fiiiiiine, we're fine....wait....nope....I'm not fine. We're NOT fine.

NOBODY'S FINE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Truth? I'm a hot mess, on a good day. On a non-pandemic day, I mean. Turns out,  '"I'm fine, I'm fine...wait...nope..." is like, my middle-aged mama mantra.

Join me, won't you?

We're all in this together, after all.

Sort of.

I mean, you're over there and I'm over here, but in spirit? We're apart, together.

 (Some of us just aren't wearing pants.)