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Motherhood

COVID Chronicles: Just keep swinging

COVID Chronicles: Just keep swinging

When I was young my father put a large swing set in our backyard. Throughout my youth, and even into my college years, on days of great frustration, I would run out there and swing as high as I could. I felt escape in climbing into the blue sky and then free-falling back down. My parents moved while I was married, and it was a long time before I returned to a swing set and discovered the years were not kind to my ability to balance, and I suddenly felt off-kilter when swinging.

COVID-19 has felt like swinging to me.

I have felt glimpses of soaring into that blue sky, and in honesty, even more moments of hurdling back towards the hard ground in a moment without control.

I have seen an introvert child become more at ease in her own skin and blossom in her ability to handle challenges. In the same day, I’ve held a pillow up for my extrovert to punch repeatedly as he screams how much he hates it right now and how mad he is (and whispered to him the secret that I feel that way too). My deep longing is for the day I can once again have an uninterrupted moment to myself, to regroup, re-nourish, and take a breath before diving into the endless responsibilities.

My hours are filled and I scratch my head when I hear of others’ boredom. I spend my days at a running pace, and at night (when I used to run) I find I only have energy now to walk. Our newly formed lunchtime bike rides as a family have been my sanity and have let me breathe freshly in a world so glorious in spring I can’t believe it. I hear my spouse speaking reassuringly to a child that they shouldn’t worry, “mom, is ok now” and realize I have once again woken myself up by screaming out loud. It is something I’ve done in the past, but never with this regularity. I know he is correct, I am ok, and yet, I am also not. While true heartache has come when job possibilities vanished due to hiring freezes, I have also been enveloped by God in a thickness I’ve seldom felt before.

So, like the masses of earth’s other children, I will continue to swing up and down right now, simply because I cannot let go and get off.

And while I am so grateful for hope, and I know this hope comes from faith, I still yearn for the days when I was a more able swinger.

-Mile High Mama, Tammy

Do you have a story to share about how you’re surviving COVID? Email us.

Mile High Mamas
Author: Mile High Mamas

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