Impossibly hard, but grand to be getting out of this time.

Sitting outside a bat mitzvah celebration last night, on a bench at the park, I thought about how we'd left the house early (with plenty of time) and I had still felt rushed out the door. 

The first gathering of celebration for our entire family (only me, Jason and Cal, but still...) since the pandemic began. What a topsy-turvy time it's been. 

The rabbi took note of this Jewish tradition being a way to mark the transition into adulthood. And a time when parents and children may shift in relationships, responsibilities and even, who owns the decisions for a child. 

Talking to a friend, they asked my thoughts on the pandemic ending and the returning to places that were familiar routines of life: the treadmills of the gym, the office elevators, and aisles of Target (where I wandered aimlessly for an hour the other night, thinking to myself about how going to thru the familiar aisles in Chicago had been a refuge when I was a new mom, away most of every weekday and my little baby was determined to maximize our weekend time together by NOT taking a nap - now a bittersweet sign of love.)

They offered this advice: acknowledge that it's ok to reconsider our day-to-day routines in 2022 and acknowledge some friendships/routines etc may change, end or continue, but feel different.  

I said I wanted to focus on reasonable achievements; they noted: reasonable expectations. 

Being a working mother during this time - phew! It's been exhausting. Though that's not anyone's fault. I was grateful for that feeling of acknowledgement. Just the same when an old manager said how strong I was and how proud she was of me.

I thought about kids going through 2020, then 2021, and now 2022. Cal has been going to school, taking the school bus for two years. Wearing a mask at school. He realized a classmate had braces for the first time when they were permitted to remove their masks! (What a moment for vaccines!)

I hope these years and crazy days make us more resilient and hopeful for the future. 

Though I admit it, sometimes I am afraid to wonder aloud: what day of the week is it? They blend together when you've been depressed and stuck at home, studying your own face on Zoom calls. (Yes, I know you can turn off the view of yourself... but that seems worse, no?) 

Impossibly hard, but grand to be getting out of this time. 

At the bat mitzah again, sitting outside, I gazed up and saw a bat fly overhead as the sun set. Its translucent, tipped wings were the sure identifier that it wasn't just a bird.  

I remembered being about 11 years old and lying on my back in the grassy side yard of our home, with my sister on a summer night that felt just the same (thought without the hokey pokey playing from the background.) And it was just one bat this time, rather than the swarm me and my sister had seen years ago - prompting us to run inside and scream at our parents - both still alive at this time, about the bats.  This time it was just one lonely bat, but I wasn't so afraid. Now older and wiser, I enjoyed sitting quietly in a dress I love. I remembered the bat/bar mitzvahs of my own pre-teen years. 

"Ha," I thought to myself, remembering how Mom had insisted me and one of my best grammar school friends attend a classmates bar mitzah ceremony from the first opening welcome until the end of the party,  1. because it was being held at the oldest synagogue in Philadelphia, and 2. it would be an educational and cultural lesson. It turns out that mom's BFF later provided the lesson that not even Jewish people go to the ENTIRE ceremony.  Ok, lesson learned. 

I left my thoughts of watching sunsets and missing Dad (whose birthday was, or at least would have been the day before) and Mom, and not even from COVID - and walked back inside to the party.