What I Am Keeping From The Pandemic

From mid-March until now has been a crazy, crazy time. We had so many changes at once. When everything started happening, my son was in Missouri visiting grandparents. We decided it would be best for me to go get him rather than them bringing him back. So on March 12th, I flew to Missouri in the morning and back with my son that evening. The airport was much quieter than normal with some people in masks and gloves. It was eerie. The next day I went to the store for groceries. We had been out of town for the first part of the week and truly needed food. When I drove up to Costco my heart sunk. The line was literally around the parking lot. I had never seen anything like it. I ended up going to Kroger and buying random things because the shelves were so bare. It was like nothing I had ever seen. 

My husband and I pastor a church and that Sunday was the last Sunday we were in person together for over 11 weeks! Navigating the new world of recording and streaming our church services was a huge learning curve. 

The company I worked for ended up doing great in online sales, but we had to have the talk of “this might be your last paycheck.”

I still continued to work from home, but my daughter’s pre-school was closed and she was home all day with me. 

So for someone who already homeschools one child and works from home, it was still a HUGE change for us. I know that for some of you who went to work every day in a different location than your home, the change was even more drastic. 

However, I learned some things about myself and how I do life during this. Some things I think I will keep!

Here are some things I learned. 

1. I am truly an introvert. The lack of contact with people did not have a huge impact on me. However, my extrovert friends were dying. I was reminded that as exhausted as I feel when I have been around huge groups of people for long periods of time, this is how my extrovert friends felt being home all day. We are all different! So rather than write off someone’s feelings as silly, I want to always think of how I can put myself into their shoes.

2. My calendar was wiped clean. April was supposed to be a very busy month for me. I had several events I was going to; one of those was a large event out of town that I was decorating for. My kids had multiple appointments (it seemed that all checkups were in April!) My son had school testing that I had to drive him to daily and wait for him to finish that would take up an entire week. All of a sudden it was all gone. And with no appointments to go to or travel to make, I was truly in charge of my schedule. When I woke up each morning I got to decide what was a priority. Yes, I always have to be sure the little people are fed and taken care of, but I got to decide that if I wanted to take extra time for my devotion or if I wanted to bake a cake I could! No one was controlling my schedule but me.
   
   Now that we are out of “pandemic mode” appointments are being rescheduled and even some events and travel as well. But I am STILL in charge of my schedule. I get to decide each day what is a priority and what is not. I make those choices. I will not allow anything else to dictate what I find to be important.
   
   Here are my current priorities:
   
   1. I must have time with the Lord each morning. At the very start of my day. It doesn’t matter if I overslept. The other things can be pushed back. This is number one.
   
   2. Exercise and taking care of my physical person. I don’t know about you, but apparently I ate my stress away during the months of March, April, and May. And unless I can find a free personal trainer to walk by my side all day and remind me to move more, I have to do this. So while I don’t love it yet, and might not ever, I have to take care of me so I can take care of the people I love.
   
   3. Shutting down on time each evening. I follow my evening routine each night. I have learned that getting ready for the next day and making sure I wake up to a clean house is extremely important to my wellbeing. But I have not always been great about wrapping that up at a good time. So I have been working on shutting the computer off (there will always be something to do) and trying to shut down my brain in time to complete my evening routine, get the kids in bed, and have a few minutes to myself. Is this easy? No way. I have to work at this. But remember - I am in charge of my priorities. 

3. Healthy relationships are worth the investment. I am so blessed to have a happy home. It is far from perfect, but I loved being in my 4 walls with the 4 of us. I am truly thankful for those months we had together. But it doesn’t stop there. While I am an introvert (meaning that I recharge from the alone time), I still need people. I had zoom calls with people from church and video chats with friends while we were all at home and it was so great to connect with people and know that we are all in the same boat. Our boats may be different sizes and shapes and maybe even in different types of water, but we are all in this life and it’s so much better together. So take the time to cultivate those relationships. My close friendships are something that has become so dear to me and I am better for them. 

So while the first few weeks were spent cleaning and organizing every nook and cranny of my house (I clean when I’m stressed or don’t know what else to do), it did finally settle down and I realized this would not be something that just lasted a week or two. At that point, we sort of fell into a schedule and now that I feel the busy bursting back in the door, I want to take a few minutes to remind myself of what I want to keep from this time period. 

I would love to hear from you! What did you learn about yourself this Spring and what are you keeping from the lessons you learned?

(Also, we need new family photos since these are a year old! )