AOYC 2020

Today of all days...this weekend of all weekends...needs words. For years we've lost track of, the May long weekend is convention weekend. It's a weekend where a thousand youth from across Ontario come together to worship and experience God, and a small group of production techs come together to be family. 

Last night, instead of putting on a headset and getting behind a camera to do my part of the worship session production, I put on a face mask and sat at my desk calling hospital wards and public health units to report positive Covid-19 results. 

This morning, instead of gathering for breakfast and laughs in the cafeteria with our crazy crew, I sat on my bed with a cup of coffee and watched the AOYC 2020 Live on YouTube (except it wasn't live anymore, because, well, covid and working).

And grief flowed heavy. 

My heart followed along with the worship coming through my screen while the pile of Kleenex grew beside me. I'd been ignoring the reality of losing this weekend, but it hit me this morning, and the tears fell hard and fast, and I just ached with the pain of missing my people and missing this convention experience that is always a highlight of my year. 

And now I finish my day with burning eyes and a lump in my throat, sniffling away at my desk while I write this at work, trying to keep still more tears at bay. Sometimes it seems these days that once you let them out they just don't want to stop. And I guess it is okay to grieve these losses, even necessary I suppose. 

But oh, how I wish we didn't have to. 

And I have just got to say, I am really, REALLY looking forward to the fantastic family reunion we will get to have when this ends, and we can have convention again. 

Working on Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day, and I'm at work. Because, well, Covid. I probably could have asked for the day off, but when my manager was making the schedule however many weeks ago, the thought didn't even really occur to me that maybe I should try to not work today. All the days sorta blend together at this point, and May 10 was just a date on the calendar. 

So here I am. 

I'm bored. 

This is a great problem to have, really. It means people aren't testing positive, and I don't have to call public health with the bad news. Every now and then the phone rings, and I get to try and answer whatever question the person on the other end has, and more often than not, I just end up transferring them to the lab techs in the back who know a lot more than me about stuff. 

But I get a lot of time just sitting and doing nothing. So I read some blogs. It's early enough in the evening that I'm not too tired to want to write some myself.  It's not even so much that there is anything in particular I feel like I need to say, but I know that writing is for me a big part of coping with life and with change, so I'm letting out what comes, and maybe somewhere in all this will be inspiration, or encouragement, or just something to make someone smile, or maybe in the end I will just have a bit of catharsis from having created with words. 

...

And now that I've said all that, I've been sitting here for the better part of 15 minutes with no clue what to write next. Random thoughts float through my head, and I can't figure out if they are worth fleshing out into concrete terms on paper or if I should just leave them as random thoughts. 

There are some pipes making incessant banging noises here in the office that I debated ranting about. Normally I am good at tuning out annoying background noises, but for some reason these pipes are driving me bonkers. 

I've also considered a discussion on mask-wearing because, well, they're a big thing nowadays. For all y'all who only have to wear one at the grocery store, let me explain a few things. It is not fun to wear them for any sort of long duration. Your nose feels forever squashed (even after you take it off, although WHAT a relief it is to remove the damn thing at the end of your shift), if you wear glasses they constantly get fogged up, and breathing recycled air gets really old. You know how we all got super intense about hand hygiene when all this hit? Yeah, if mask-wearing becomes more prevalent, I predict oral hygiene will be the next big deal...

All that aside, I am thankful that I actually have masks to wear at work, as well as everyone else I work with. I do think they are necessary, especially as we are not always able to maintain 6 feet of distance in the office. But I don't have to like it...

I think I'm done with the verbalizing thoughts now...  Sorry for rambling and being random...

Up and Down, Round and Around

It seems I am not one of those with lots of spare time on their hands during this quarantine. Good intentions to write more and sort through this roller coaster of emotions have clearly just been that - intentions without follow through. I decided to force the issue today as I'm starting to go a little crazy with all these part posts running through my head with no outlet. Forgive me if this gets long as a result...

I am so done with this horror of a theme park that is the year 2020. It feels like we'll never escape this constant whirl of spinny rides and ups and downs and whipping back and forth that is navigating this pandemic. And while to a certain extent the initial shock and anxiety of the beginning has worn off, it's only led the way to forever flipping back and forth between "this really isn't such a big deal" to "my God this is terrible; when will it end?!" 

And we try to settle into something resembling a routine, a new normal per se if only to find some reassurance and way out of the panic, but dear lord, there are days when this new normal royally sucks. 

Maybe it's just my introverted need for isolation peeking through today. And that sentence in itself is ironic, as so many are feeling the isolation too strongly right now. But for me, with three kids at home, my only isolation comes when I'm alone in the office when I'm working evenings at the hospital, and I dare say, that very much does not count as introvert recharge time. 

So I'm exhausted. I tell myself I'll take it easy on my 2 days off before going back to work for another 5 days, but that's a pipe dream. There is no time off to be taken with 3 kids to homeschool, mountains of laundry, meals to cook and a house to be cleaned. 

And here I sit, wasting precious laundry-folding time to vent off some steam about the crappiness of this new life we find ourselves unceremoniously shoved into. 

And I wish I could say, this too shall pass, and I'm sure it will, and as this roller coaster continues, I'm sure in an hour I'll feel completely different, but for now I'm wallowing, and allowing myself to dwell on the misery for just a little. My unfortunate brain takes me down roads of knowing this won't be over any time soon, and while we might resume some of our more usual activities, we will be living in this pandemic state for many more months. 

So I know I need to get used to this. 

But I wish I didn't have to. And I wish it was easier. Cuz yeah, this is hard. 

Did I mention I don't really like roller coasters?