Hard to Remember

It's hard to remember a time when we were up and out the door at 7:35 in the morning.  Dressed, fed, ready to take on the challenges of a long and hard day at school and work and life. 

It's hard to remember a time when Jason was more consistently at the station than at this desk. 

 It's hard to remember a life when face masks were foreign, when large gatherings were normal, and  getting together with friends didn't require a preliminary conversation about level of social distancing everyone is comfortable with.

Or a time when we knew that we had to be somewhere at a certain time and we were there.  Church every Wednesday and Sunday, piano lessons every Wednesday and Thursday, baseball every weekend, orchestra every Tuesday.  Lots of get-togethers and activities and upcoming events.  We haven't had a whole lot of that for the last three months, and it has been so strange and so wonderful, surely in part because we know that it's temporary.  This life is great because we know it won't last forever.

Life has changed so much.  Sabbath day church at home is sometimes at 10:30, sometimes at noon.  And it has been so wonderful and I can't help but think that in small part that is because we aren't scrambling to get out the door at a certain time.  The clock has always been a trigger point for me.

It's hard to imagine a day when we will have to go back to a regularly scheduled life.  What will life look like in the fall?  Will we go back to school, to schedules, to stress?  Or will we resist it all more than ever because we know that, for better or worse, one way or another, at the cost of things that are worth giving up, there is another way.

All we can do right now is pray for a better hybrid of life than the one we once knew.  Shorter school days, less days in the office, more time to learn and relax and enjoy life together as a family.

A shift on perspective and a chance to refocus on the things that matter most.  That has been the biggest blessing of the coronavirus.