I Need to Stop + Breathe

When quarantine life started five weeks ago today, there was SO much online noise coming at me.

My inbox and life were on FIRE!

I was getting a ton of emails from EVERYONE!!

Businesses I shop at were constantly informing me about their COVID-19 store hours and closures.

Online businesses I follow were sending me all their information on how I could buy their products because they’d be great for me while I’m home during this time.

My kid’s teachers were (and still!) emailing me SO many wonderful resources that I can do at home with them.

The school district was calling me (and still does!) to inform me about SO many wonderful resources they have for online education and how I can set up an entire school day for their education.

Then, on top of that, I’d go on social media (I had been off for quite some time and I opened them up again so I could get all the important info I may have missed if I wasn’t on) to try to keep up with everything and it had me feeling like I was drowning. I could NOT keep up with everything being posted for my kids!

Then I’d try to figure out Camille’s school info in her google classroom on her laptop and it made my head hurt because I have NO idea how it works, only she does.

Then she’d have Zoom class, and Luca doesn’t, so every time she gets on them he gets upset and then trying to figure out the logistics of it all while Luca is trying his hardest not cry by clinging on to me to help him with his emotions at the same time had me starting to feel even more overwhelmed.

When I’d open an app on my phone…the Weather Channel App, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and so many others…COVID-19 info was the first thing to pop up.

And trying to figure out all of this, while also immediately transitioning my kids from school to basically summer break, had me SPINNING!!

I found myself struggling to keep up with it all which caused me to feel SO overwhelmed and SO stressed out!

Especially the school part at home, because just doing homework is hard enough in the house, but trying to get them to sit and do their actual school work at home, OMG!! NOT EASY! NOT EASY AT ALL!!

And as my overwhelmed emotions started to FEEL out of hand, something called out to me from within to just STOP + BREATHE!!!

From the daily challenges, daily themes, suggested books to read, art projects and all kinds of cool ways to teach math lessons, share a picture of what we’re doing at home, to watching all the videos the teachers are posting to stay connected to their students ALL while worrying about my husband who is still going into work and figuring out how we’re going to get our essential things at the store, just had me feeling like my mind was running 100 miles way ahead of my body and I just could NOT catch up!

I HAD TO STOP + BREATHE!!!

I realized that just like with the news, I have to look away. I can’t consume and focus on this all day long. I have to take a break from it because it’s starting to affect me in a negative way.

And that can be hard to do when the information is EVERY WHERE I look!!

It’s A LOT for my left-brain (fears, worries, doubts) to handle!

I had to walk away and get quiet (which is also VERY hard to do when my kids are home with me all day!) so I could focus on one thing at a time.

I was transiting from this, too!

In an instant those five days a week, 5-hour breaks, with just ME and no one else were gone!!

So I was adjusting, just like the kids, to this new way of life, too!!

I needed a TOO-MUCH-INFORMATION break!

I get it though!

My kids are home now at a time when they should still be in school and the teachers are doing such an AMAZING job at helping us parents with resources and ideas on how to keep learning at home.

They’ve been doing such an OUTSTANDING job!

And people are losing their jobs and money needs to be made so I understand why everyone is sending all their info on how to make that happen for them at this time.

But as I was getting overwhelmed with it all, I started to think about Mother Earth and this virus!

The world has not stopped like this since 1918!!

1918!!

That’s a LONG time ago!

And when I think about it, the world is VERY different in 2020.

We move FAST!!! TOO FAST!!

And because of that that I can’t help but think that this virus is here for that very reason…to make us STOP and BREATHE for once!!

When this first started, everyone was moving even faster!!!! Because we’re human and we have to keep doing our human things to live, so I get that!

But never, ever, have we had time to just STOP and BREATHE!!

Mother Earth has been crying out to us to give her some peace and love and we haven’t!

I mean, how can we, when we have human things to do and human places to be! If we don’t do them, we can’t live the way we want to, right?

So now, because of this virus, she gets to be nourished and loved!!! She gets a break from all the pollution and noise that is constantly filling her!

And now, just like Mother Earth, we get a break from all the pollution and noise that fills us every day, too!!

And this virus, it affects the lungs and breathing. I can’t help but now to be SO grateful for my lungs and that they’re clear and helping me to breathe. I’m more aware of my lungs doing this for me than I ever have been before, and because of that, I can’t help but think that it’s telling us something BIG TIME!!

To STOP + BREATHE!!!

And my kids, they’re going to BE just fine!!

I was worried at first that they’re going to fall behind and that there’s no way I’ll ever be able to keep up with their online learning while they’re home me…it’s the hardest thing to teach them while keeping a household together as well as parenting all their emotions (and everything else that parenting brings!), especially during a time when the world as just turned upside down.

I started to realize that this is actually a wonderful time for my kids!

No one has ever been given a time like this!!

A time where they can go back to just BEing a kid!! Like when they were toddlers before full-time school started.

Because once they start school, it’s on!!!

There’s a lot less playing and just BEing and a whole lot more rule-following and learning so tests can be passed and moving on to the next grade level and be had.

Life just starts to be VERY adult-like for them once they start school.

So I said, now is the time to just let them BE kids!!

Because once this passes they’ll be back in school and well on their way to doing adult things for the rest of their lives so I want them to PLAY their hearts out and just BE a kid right now!! Because as they grow older, they’ll never get a HUGE opportunity like this again!!

A huge opportunity to just PLAY and BE a kid at 7 and 10 years old!!

And check this out!! I don’t even have to push learning (because when I do it causes so much stress for us all and honestly at a time that has us ALL stressed out I don’t want to keep adding to it!) because they’re doing it on there own!!

Camille LOVES her Zoom calls and connecting on her laptop with her class and teachers. She’s also watching shows on Amelia Earhart and other history-related shows because right now, she LOVES history!

Luca and I snuggle up and read together before bed and he’s constantly doing math in ways I never expected….telling me that a show he watches is 30 minutes long and so if we start watching the show at 7 PM, we can watch two shows before bed, because two shows will be 60 minutes and that will be an hour and when it’s over it will be 8PM…bedtime!

So right now I AM NOT WORRIED about my kids and I will continue to keep providing ways to help them learn in a way that brings them JOY because when I do that all of our stress levels start to dissolve!!!

But they do miss being at school so much and it breaks my heart!

Because what I know for sure, we ALL need this break!!

WE NEED TO SLOW DOWN!!! WE NEED TO STOP!!! WE NEED TO BREATHE!!!

And now, as I’ve just finished our fifth week of quarantine life, I do feel like I AM starting to breathe a little more.

My inbox isn’t as crazy as it was and our transition from school to home is starting to come together, yes, sibling fighting has started, but now it’s starting to feel more like being home with the kids for summer break, which is good because summer break doesn’t bring as much stress as these five weeks have.

I still feel overwhelmed and worried at times.

Like what if school doesn’t start till 2022?

When can I go back to the dentist because I was supposed to go on April 28th? And when I do go back, do I even want to right away because I don’t want to sit in the chair with my mouth wide open just yet.

Do I want to take my kids to their dentist appointments right away and have them sit in the chair with their mouths wide open?

Is the online school schedule going to get more intense if the kids don’t go back to school for a long time?

Will it be like this for many years?

Will I ever be able to not freak out a bit if someone sneezes or coughs next to me (because I know it’s going to take my mind some time to calm from all this!)?

How long it will be until we can go out into crowds again, like Mardi Gras, parades and not worry about getting sick?

Will I always be thinking about when I touch something in public that I could be picking up germs and could get sick and that maybe I didn’t wash my hands enough to kill the germs?

Will I ever get to go back to the grocery store again (because right now D is going for us!)?

Will I ever feel calm again when the school district calls me with more information that they’ve added to their online distance resources?

(Because they just called me as I was typing this and said they’re adding more structure to online learning on Monday since schools are now closed for the rest of the year and my overwhelmed feelings just escalated a bit…actually…a lot!)

Stop and breathe, Renee! Stop and breathe!

But what I keep telling myself now is that right now we are in the middle of a long and huge storm and it will pass.

And while it’s going on I have to remember to STOP, go within and BREATHE!!

Especially when it feels like everything happening EXTERNALLY around me is too much and when I start thinking that my kids are going to fall behind.

And once they do go back and we ALL go back to our regularly scheduled programming, they WILL be fine! I WILL be fine! And THEY WILL catch up!

Because once everything settles, I’m pretty sure we will all be right back to DO-DO-DOING again, but hopefully in a new way, where we have all learning just how important it is to STOP + BREATHE no matter how crazy and stressful life gets thanks to the lesson COVID-19 quarantine life brought us and taught us!

And if there’s anything I want my kiddos (and me!) to learn the most from of all of this is that when life gets SUPER overwhelming and SUPER stressful to STOP, BREATHE and connect within so it can be navigated with more faith and inner peace and less fear and worry!

Because that right there is what I feel we ALL need as we grow more and more into our adult selves!

I AM SOUL GRATEFUL for this reminder!!

Because I needed it BIG TIME!!

Mother Earth needs to breathe and so do I!!

Until next time…

Why do I hand letter uplifting words? Because it easily calms my mind, ignites my joy and slows me down so I can BE a more calm, happy + present mom (something that's hard to do when my mind is running five miles ahead or behind the present moment...especially during a global pandemic!) and truly focus on what matters most in life and all the GOOD that fills it!