(Try to) Look on the Bright Side
I’m usually a fairly positive person. A lot of stress at work? We’ll get it done. Car cut me off? Well, maybe they just didn’t see me. Hurricane coming? Ehh, it won’t be as bad as they say. Maybe that’s naivety, not positivity. Either way, it has worked for me.
During these last few weeks I have gone from feeling like “it’ll all be okay” to feeling a total loss of control and an “I can’t do this” feeling and back again. My husband may have even found me face down in the bed sobbing once or twice. I don’t like feeling negative. So, the past few days I’ve tried to start finding the positive in any situation.
Here are my positive spins on things happening in my life:
- Negative: Kids can’t go to school and have to be at home all day while we work.
Positive: My kids are being more creative and talkative with their friends than ever. They are face-timing people, painting, baking, and making up games.
2. Negative: I have to now figure out how to teach my students with all very different needs from a distance. They don’t all have computers or even internet access.
Positive: This has pushed me to figure out technology that will be useful even next year when we do get back to school. I have talked to more parents in the last two weeks than I do in two months during regular school. My students are sending me pictures and videos of themselves learning to ride bikes, playing with their dog, and reading books.
3. Negative: My daughter was doing laundry and dried all the clothes on high heat for 20 minutes because it would be faster. They probably shrunk a bit.
Positive: My daughter was doing laundry!!!
4. Negative: I am not rising to the challenge and cleaning out closets and organizing my whole house. (Did I mention I work??)
Positive: When I yell “Home Ec Time” throughout the house, my three kids come running (not always happily, but still) to ask what their Home Ec chores are. We all get it done within 30 minutes. So, it’s clean enough.
5. Negative: THERE IS NO SCHOOL. Oh my gosh. There is a reason I don’t homeschool my children. I’m not cut out for it. I school other people’s children. I’m good at that.
Positive: We are not running around like crazy people every single week night. And my husband and I aren’t arguing about who has to go pick up our oldest from dance at 9:00 at night when we just want to sit in our pajamas on the couch.
Other Positives:
6. I’ve been walking my dog more with the family.
7. I’ve stayed up late with my oldest watching movies because I don’t have to be up at 5:30 in the morning.
8. My son loves to play checkers with me.
9. My middle daughter loves to practice her braiding skills on my hair.
10. My husband and I now have dates just driving around the city. It’s like back when we were dating and had no money to go to restaurants. We’d just drive around and go to the park.
I hope you, too, can find at least one positive aspect of the situation you have found yourself in because of this quarantine.
