You can see the date I am writing this. It is April, 2020. March was a weird month at my house. To be honest, while the whole family really should have been focusing their time and energy considering how best to celebrate my half birthday on March 16, both my mom and my dad were glued to their screens shifting our entire school into this thing called, "Distance Learning." It really doesn't seem so complicated, so I don't know what has them working so hard, in reality, aren't the teachers doing all the work? Honestly, I don't see my parents reading Charlotte's Web in my Google Classroom!
Anyway, the point is, we are all staying home. We are stuck in the house, bla bla bla, and it is driving me a little bonkers. Yes, I have been doing my distance learning, but that is easy. The hard part is not really knowing how long this is going to go on for. The truth is, I love my mom and my dad, but I miss so many people so much. I miss my friends from school, and my teacher, Mrs. A, and my brothers! Oh, my brothers! Those boys! When we are home together they more or less ignore me because I am their "little sister" but I know they love me. Now, it is like some gigantic metal door was closing, like in a movie and they were running toward the door, but it closed and they were trapped on the other side. I wish they were trapped on my side. They are at their mom's house, and I am here at home.
Its funny though, you know, how something can seem kind of awful, but then when you start to explain it out loud, you start to remember how many good things are happening too. Like, now that we are doing school at home it has a new name, "Distance Learning," and that kind of makes it better because we aren't comparing it to school, its this whole "new" thing. I wonder if we should do the same with the rest of our life. I mean, we can't compare how life is today to how life was a month ago, that just wouldn't be fair, but maybe if we call this, "Distance Living," we can see how many good parts there really are.
I have one to three virtual playdates everyday with some of my best friends thanks to Google Hangout video chats. I usually only see my Nana at big events, she comes up for Easter and some big occasions, but since we started distance living, we have talked on FaceTime every week. It is funny to watch grandparents use FaceTime. I have never walked my dog so many times in any week I can remember! Last night, my brothers agreed to play with me, without even putting up a fight: we played Headbandz over a Zoom Video chat; it was so funny because my brothers and I kept changing our virtual backgrounds to dogs and stuff. Last week we had a whole family video chat with my grandma and papa, my aunties and my cousin Holly's family, I was a bit too shy to talk, but it made me happy to see everyone. I think I have seen more family in one week than maybe anytime I can remember. I think we need this technology to make us feel connected, and feeling connected makes everything less scary.
Two nights ago I walked into my dad's office, its this extra room in the back of our house. He had music playing on the little Alexa plugged into the wall by the door. I don't even know why I did this, but I walked straight over to the device and I said, "Alexa, play 'Did you Know My Friend,' by Peff Eick," and my dad's eyes just about popped out of his head. I don't think he knew that his Uncle Peff's song was on Alexa. I walked straight over to my dad and stood toe to toe, looking straight up at him. There was something so comforting about this song, about this moment, that we were surrounded by family even though we were Distant Living, I took his hand and put them on my shoulders, and I put mine on his and we danced. My dad, he is such a softy. I swear I think I saw a tear in his eye. Even though we are all distance living, the fact that we have people to stay connected with and the technology to keep us connected, it makes everything just a little better.
I don't think we can compare how life is today to how life used to be, but I can say this, using whatever tools we have to stay connected, whether the whole world is on quarantine or not seems like a pretty good way to spend our time.
