Oh friends, can you feel the weight of the week growing? I feel like every day I am waking up to a new normal. There is no normal now, except the abnormal.
What has been heavy on my mind is — what if I am responsible for bringing home COVID-19 to my family? What if I contract the virus and am out of commission for a few weeks/months or worse. What if, what if…. what if. What if I lose someone important to me?
And then while talking to a good friend this morning, I realized that what I should be saying to myself is not what if, but rather “I am enough and I am trying my best”. As we try to protect our loved ones, has this become the new thing that moms can feel guilty about not doing well enough?
Mom guilt is the worst. But quarantined mom guilt is like someone has taken that original mom guilt and lit it on fire. It can consume you in a matter of minutes if you let it. Am I homeschooling well enough? Are my kids eating healthy? Am I disinfecting the groceries entirely before the kids touch them? Are they getting enough stimulation? Are they getting too much stimulation? What will they remember about this quarantine? Am I writing in my journal so they will have a detailed account in 50 years of what this is actually like? And the big question — can I keep my kids safe from the virus? I literally thought of all of these questions in the first 15 minutes of waking up today.
So going forward, I am going to stop myself whenever the am I good enough question pops into my head, and I am replacing it with have I tried my best? And if you or someone you love does fall ill with COVID-19, shift your perspective and ask yourself what do I need to do to get through the day? Now is not the time to be what-iffing. Now is the time to listen, be gentle with yourself, and support your friends and family from afar. Leave the what-iffing to the scientists who will be studying data for the next 100 years.
So here is my message tonight friends. You can’t mom guilt yourself into preventing illness. You just can’t. Follow directions, try your best, and then at the end of the day pour yourself a glass of wine and have a cookie for another successful day. We’re all just wingin’ it.
Stay safe,
Sam