Things I’ve Been Missing

Overall, our Coronavirus Isolation is going fine. I can’t really complain about staying home when I love to stay home! Homeschool/Distance Learning has a few bumps now and then, but overall, it’s going fine. We have food to eat, and it really helps that there is some green grass on the ground and that we can get outside more easily to do things outdoors.

Because I know we will look back on this time with interest, I think it does make sense to document some of the things I’m missing, too:

• One of the hardest parts of the beginning of isolation was watching everything on the calendar get cancelled and erased, particularly events on the calendar that celebrated important milestones and accomplishments. In particular, it was sad that choir, band and orchestra concerts were wiped away, and as those dates have now come and gone, we have missed those concerts! We have missed singing and playing instruments with other people, and we have missed listening and watching music performed in person.
• We are unsurprisingly missing the library!!!! I anticipated the closure of the library and school after just the first couple of days of things starting to be cancelled, and we all took a trip to the public library and filled up our library card limits, which means that we literally have hundreds of library materials in the house along with thousands of other books that are our own, but some kidlets here have run out of books to read that they haven’t read, and one kidlet in particular really misses hanging out at the library for hours on end because the library is his happy place. It’s a weird feeling knowing that you can’t just request a book from the library that you want to read. We aren’t big fans of ebooks, and even ordering physical books from Amazon or other online stores is (understandably) limited.
• I miss the ease of doing errands. Even though the post office and grocery stores are open, it just takes more effort to go there, to purchase things, to put on a mask if it is required.
• I tremendously miss teaching my music students in person. Many of my students are taking a break from lessons right now, and others I connect with online. While my online teaching skills have grown exponentially, music lessons are definitely better in person.
• I miss the stability of knowing what is going to happen next and being able to put that on my calendar. Sometimes it feels discombobulating to not have a plan.