Our Life, Quarantined

Hi! Boy, this is awkward. It’s like one of those “going out for milk, brb” scenarios, huh? Time flies, I guess. I’ve been out getting milk for *checks watch* for about 6 months! The last full post was in August 2020 when I discussed the cancer, but I updated that post as needed and the last time I wrote in the blog was the October update for that. I didn’t even finish it! I remember falling asleep typing and saying “I’ll come back to it tomorrow.” Nope, tomorrow turned out to be like 3 days ago haha. I have been checking in from time to time, don’t get me wrong. Not like I forgot my password or anything. I’d like to say I sign in to engage with readers who come across this digital time capsule of mine, but in reality I’m really just making sure that it’s still working and the blog still actually exists.

Anyway, what’s been happening with me?

Not a whole lot! Everything is going great and can’t complain.

Ok, fine, that’s not entirely true. Things have been absolutely insane. Life has been relentlessly coming at us, testing our sanity every which way. The pandemic has been going on for over a year and counting and we’re still going strong with our fight against it. Seriously, yeah. It’s been over a year, can you believe it? I can’t! Over a year of this craziness. So much has happened and at the same time, a lot of nothing has happened haha. More and more strides are being made and hopefully sooner rather than later things will be better. And we’ll all look back and remember the times we treated and cleaned every single item in our groceries as if it was contaminated with the virus. 

As for us, we’re still wearing our masks everywhere religiously, even though many around us are seeming to care less and less. If you’ve seen or heard anything about Florida, it’s probably true. All of it. Bunch of savages down here. We haven’t been to a theme park in a few months. We have been missing Universal, we ditched those passes at the beginning of the pandemic. Maybe we’ll get them back soon. Can’t listen to Harry Potter or Jurassic Park music without having an urge to get in a car and go get tickets again.

Disney, we’ve been holding onto and were going here and there. But the past few times, we noticed it’s getting busier and busier with more and more people disregarding any rules in place. So we decided to take a break. Hopefully when we go in a few weeks like we have planned it’ll be a good trip. Going to Hollywood Studios to visit Galaxy’s Edge for May the 4th! Shouldn’t be busy at all!

The good news? The wife and I both had our first dose of the Phizer vaccine! Bad news is, I still don’t know how to spell Phfizer. I’ll get it one day.

And for the record, we’re excited to get vaccinated. We’ve been living in this fear just like millions of others. Not just for us, but for our kids. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and we’re glad for it. We always said we’d wait. We wouldn’t be the first ones in line to get the vaccine when it was offered. But we feel like it’s been out long enough to be ok at this point, despite the recent blood clotting findings… Hopefully we get to the point where it’s 100% safe and everywhere and we hit that mark where so many are vaccinated we don’t need to worry about it anymore. That would be fantastic. And if you are of the mind where you don’t want the vaccine or you think it’s some crazy conspiracy theory, or that everything about COVID has been a hoax, there’s a new drug out there just for you.

Ugh, now I’m thinking about theme parks. See what you done did! I have a whole bunch of old theme park pics I never posted. Maybe I’ll go through them.

More bad news, the kids can’t get vaccinated yet. And they need it most of all. Not only because they’re the future and their safety is priority, and that our love for them is more than anything that can be measured, bless their hearts, those precious beings. But mostly because they really, really, truly, madly, deeply, savage gardenly, need to get TF back to school. 

I guess I’ll get into that since it’s a big mental roadblock in this house right now. To be fair, we’ve had the option to send them off. School has been in session all year here. There are plenty like us who are still taking advantage of the homeschooling option, but there are also plenty who are sending their kids to school like normal. It’s been some of the most difficult decisions to not send them in. They are suffering from being homeschooled on so many levels, it’s almost unfair. And it’s not just the kids, because the wife and I are suffering right along with them. Like, oh, it’s almost lunch time, I have a few minutes to rock back and forth as I cry in the dark on the bathroom floor. It’s better there, you know. Because if you cry into the sandwiches you’re making for the kids, they’ll refuse to eat them from being too salty. 

But honestly, it’s been hard. So, so hard. The house has not been picked up in a year it feels like. I used to maintain some sort of order here when they were in school. I used to “clean up” (quotes because I’m not legally allowed to say I cleaned due to the wife’s swearing that I never really clean clean). I used to make sure things were refreshed while they were gone and created a sense of order. But now? There’s nothing but a constant chaos that overflows into everything. I clean an area and before I’m even starting on the next, the first area is already getting messed up. It’s like we subconsciously raised two Tasmanian Devils. And their brother genes kicked so their fighting amongst themselves is at an all-time high too, with the action of simply grabbing a remote control laying on the couch is enough to send them into an hour long war against each other. And don’t even get me started on school. 

No, I’m not even talking about how dumb I am and how much I can’t help with stuff. Seriously, have you seen what kids these days have to know?! Why? Why do they need to know all this math?? Anyway, that’s beside the point. The whole point of homeschooling is to, you know, do school at home. But no, that’s not the case here. It’s as if the distractions of home are too much and even with their possessions locked behind their doors, they still find ways to avoid doing work.

Classes are getting flunked, attitudes are high and patience is thin. We feel like in the attempt to control the situation with our kids and COVID, we completely lost control of everything else in regards to them. And us as parents are feeling like complete failures because the harder we try to make sure they’re doing what they need to do with their classes, the more we’re burning whatever bridges we’ve built with them. Getting upset at them if they’re not sitting in front of a computer isn’t the way a home should be. No, it doesn’t help that they are so disconnected from the learning process and want nothing to do with any of it. But at the same time, we can’t blame them for any of it because this just isn’t natural.

More power to those who normally homeschool their kids, but there are certain types of children who it just doesn’t work for them. Ours are those types. Heck maybe all kids are those types and the regular everyday homeschooling parents just don’t say anything in an attempt to look superior. Well not anymore! Before, I would see a homeschooling parent and think “wow, this person has all their shit together. The amount of control and patience and time to give, I’m jealous and beyond impressed.” But now? Now it’s going to be more along the lines of “you’re a GD sociopath, why would you do this?! There are other options! Do you need a hobby, I can help you find a hobby!” OK, obvi, I’m not (completely) serious. Homeschoolers have their reasons and structures. I’m not trying to offend, but this side of the fence is not green for us. This is taking something they tolerate and don’t like doing for numerous reasons, and forces them to focus on it at home. Home, which is their sanctuary and only place they are really safe from it. And if they don’t focus, then they get in trouble for it because the education system tells us “bad grades = bad kid.”

We agree and understand that they definitely got the shit end of the stick. I hate that saying, btw. What is this stick? What are you doing with it that one end is designated solely for that? My wife takes this time to ask me what I’m writing about, so I tell her “the shit end of a stick.” To which she replies, “your colonoscopy?” No, wife. But good one!

Anyway, this post can go on and on and on. I feel like pages and pages of things can be written about the pandemic, the quarantine, homeschooling, all of this mess. 

And I completely feel like I dropped the ball with it all. Because we were in a lockdown/quarantine for months and months and I did nothing. 

Not a single productive thing. I didn’t write any blog posts, I didn’t work on podcasts, didn’t read, didn’t play games, nothing! Well, we did have a time recently where we were hitting Pokémon Go crazy hard and it was glorious. But that’s another post. I think back to the quarantine though and it feels like it should have been prime time to just do anything. Whatever. As if the world stood still and everyone was just able to do anything they wanted/needed to do while at home. Many took the opportunity. So many dumb but hilarious videos of what was going on in their quarantined lives. So many extroverts crying and unable to grasp this new normal, meanwhile introverts like me are looking around wondering what is different about this lifestyle change.

But I look back now and I can’t even remember what we did in those days. I remember the struggles, the worries and such. I remember spending lots of time with the family as we all wondered what was going to happen. But the details were fuzzy. The wife was on maternity leave for the entire quarantine. Lucky her, right?! So much time off work and can’t do a damn thing LOL. I do remember just driving. Driving around aimlessly, just to get fresh air. Until of course, another car pulled up beside us then I would roll the windows up real quick. But we would just drive around and see everything empty. Void of the busy life everyone always lived. Void of the hustle, the fun…

Void of all the jerks on the road, OMG that was so nice though! So few people driving around, that was amazing, ngl. If I’m being completely honest, the quarantine taught me a lot about myself. I used to think I was a people person. But seeing how nice it was not dealing with anyone’s unpredictably stupid behavior and having to interact with someone only if I absolutely had to, it taught me just how over society’s BS I really was. Like I’m going to be socially distancing long after I don’t have to anymore. No, you’re not going to stand so close behind me in line. No, you’re not going to cram yourself into this elevator because “you can fit.” Back the eff up, this is MY space. But anyway, a blog was such a perfect thing to keep a record of it all and I just didn’t. I can’t help but kick myself for it now because what else am I going to do? 

I guess I’ll call this one. Like I said, could go on and on. I’m going to see if I can get the best of this thing called time. Find a way to carve out some of it to dedicate to writing again. Sometimes I check out old blog posts here and I’m taken aback from all the random stupid stuff I used to post. So many memories and things to reflect on. And these days there’s so much to talk about. So much to do. The days are drained away in homeschool and I honestly feel like it’s eating away at my soul. I’m looking more forward to vacations and weekends than the kids are. My, how those tables have turned. Let’s see if we could get back on track. Do something productive and feel like I’m creating again. Speaking of which, in the meantime, be sure to check out the podcast. With it being over a year old and only having 12 episodes, you can see what I mean by not doing anything productive. It hurts something fierce. I would love to pour more love into it, especially seeing where the last three or four episodes went. Maybe one day I’ll hit it full force again. 

Ahhhhh I’m still talking, ok I’m hanging up. No, you hang up.