My daughter in law gave a wonderful talk at a conference yesterday about the impact of covid on women/mothers. She spoke of the awful reality that hit when all the kids were home and they did not want to do home-school (not she was a high calibre teacher and youngest principal in a large city), or puzzles, or even go for a walk outside. She spoke about feeling overwhelmed and then deciding that she was bored, too. She spoke of, one night, deciding she could reorganize house (that wore off by morning). She spoke of different things she planned by night and wore off, again, by morning. She spoke of losing hope, feeling mildly depressed for a month or so and then having an unthinkable death in her family of a nephew and having, then, to deal with it all amid covid. She lost even more hope and was in total despair for her brother, her parents, and her family. She became hopeless and sad. What turned her around was the generosity, kindness and generosity of friends and neighbors. She stared at her calendar that used be too full and now was empty and wondering whatever she was going to do. She is learning to be gentle with self and allowing that she could still hope and has been asked to do a job that she can do and still be in isolation and still find things that inspire her. She is a brave courageous woman who once did too much and is learning to do less and it is okay. There are many young mothers, and most women, who are bravely and courageously putting one foot in front of the other to deal with covid. One day we woke up and our world changed dramatically. I have a feeling that most women found their lives more changed than did the men in our lives.
Women who worked in many of the service industry saw their jobs end, or take leave, and little hope of opening and changing any time soon. They are home. Their roles in society and in their homes has changed, in fact, taken huge steps backwards and loss of equality there. They are barefoot, pregnant, and/or stuck in the house doing ‘housewifey’/mother things and little more. And there was more housecleaning and more laundry and more meals to make in a day that drug on in drudgery. The loss of one partner’s job brought/brings on many financial concerns. Women are feeling the isolation at a greater degree. It was overwhelming, I am sure. Anxiety is huge. There was/is little hope that things will go back to the way they were and are forced to learn new ways to be.
Being isolated is huge. Yes, some women are benefiting, emotionally, from being able to stay home, being able to close themselves off more, and are enjoying less expectations to be outside of the home. But, for a majority, it was and is difficult to deal with the heavily burdened business of being home 24/7. Most of us miss our regularly scheduled outings. We were already feeling like we wanted more outings because we already knew isolation and loneliness. Many of us are miles, countries, away from family.
It is up to all of us to make the most with what time, space, and place allows. We need to have something to hope for. We need something that keeps us going. We need to know that things will become more like our old normal. At the same time, I know I am grateful for the new ways of not being isolated. There are still things we can do that we have not done before. We can develop new hobbies, take online classes, make new recipes, etc. Social medias keep us from feeling totally isolated. If we are simply stuck in our house, make that house time worthy and find new ways to enjoy such. As we age, this is part of what we were fighting…this isolation and lack of things we could do. Battle it all. Battle against being overwhelmed, isolated and defeated.
Learning to walk rather than run, go calmly rather than rushing, is huge for some of us. Since anger is the easiest emotion to show, curtail that by finding joy in new ways of being. I am grateful for my daughter in law and her talk on how reality can bite and what we can do about it. I wish you the kind of friends my daughter in law had visit just when she needed it the most. I love you. I wish you days full of new discoveries about self and what self can do.
©Carol Desjarlais 21.10.20
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