Today I find myself stuck at home in a snow storm with sick kids. A couple years ago this sort of thing would have wrecked me. The prospect of an entire day alone with grumpy, irritable kids, and no one to give me a break. The feeling of having no control over when they will feel better and be able to get back to school. The Fear Of Missing Out, having to cancel commitments or events, feeling the pressure (real or imaginary) to do everything and being forced instead to do nothing.
The pandemic has solved some of these problems for me. When there’s nothing going on there’s nothing to miss out on. And when school definitely does not want snotty sniffling kids in the building, the decision to keep them home is easy and I don’t feel pressured to get them back there prematurely.
Other things time has taken care of. My kids are getting older. Sickness turns a 6-18 month old into a no-sleep-monster-baby. But a cold or fever turns my seven year-old into a more quiet and docile version of his usually loud and high-energy self. Sick days used to be a fight for survival. Now they’re cozy, pajama days filled with quiet play, movies, and rest. (Let me add, lest you’re getting too perfect a picture in your mind, my kids are not perfect. I just finished a 10 minute argument over who would get to take a giant velour pillow with them for resting time.)
The biggest change I notice is in myself. I don’t worry about things as much as I used to. Kids getting sick used to freak me out because I was certain it wasn’t just a cold, that there must be something wrong. There’s a good reason for my paranoia. 24 hours after my “perfectly healthy” first baby was born, several serious birth defects were discovered and he was whisked away from me for surgery. I’ve watched things go wrong for my kid when they should have gone right. At the time I was distracted with learning how to be a mom, and how to deal with medical devices and my son’s disability. It wasn’t until years had gone by that I realized the trauma I had been through, and how it was affecting the way I saw my other children. (In case you’re wondering, I saw them as ticking time bombs, and that at any moment something terrible might happen and my world might explode, again.)
It’s hard for me to make a long story short but I’ll try. In short, I had PTSD, I sought professional help, and I got better. Not right away. Not before first feeling like I would never get better. But I did. Now I hardly ever think about it. It’s not until something happens that in the past would have sent me spiraling – like my kids getting sick – that I realize how fragile and broken I was, and how much growing I have done.
The point of all this is to say that sometimes you’re in a hole, and it feels like you will never climb out. And then one day you’ll look around and realize that hole is five miles behind you. Life is hard, trauma is real, if you haven’t experienced it yet you probably will at some point. But grace is real too. There is help available, there is healing to be found. And – here’s the important thing – we get better.