Last weekend, we walked over to a park near us where a tree was about to be lit, because as you already know here in month #21 of this thing, any outdoor activity is something. And it?d been a day where we could all really use a something.
I looked around as we stood there, at all of the rest of us, and actually said out loud to my people, ?Ohhhhhhhh. It?s not just us.? Because all the parents with a kiddo under five years old just looked So. Effing. Exhausted.
Like maybe you, too, feel a hundred years older than you did two years ago. Like maybe this worn-out vibe that can?t be shaken is actually more shared than it feels. You?re still trying with everything you?ve got to bring some intentional fun and wonder for the kids, who?ve given up so very much to keep the rest of us safe. And now that they?re the last ones left to benefit from the protection of a vaccine, and folks were too tired of it all to extend the same giving-up-of-things courtesy back to them, things are just open, but you and your littles are not on the inside of any of that. We all looked a lonely kind of tired, standing there masked and cold and six feet apart, half a block away from restaurants where adults were sharing a meal and a bevvy and breathing together in the warm inside.
If you?re a COVID-cautious household with someone who can?t yet be vaccinated among you, it means you?ve probably already declined a few friend gatherings or holiday parties that you were surprised to realize are even happening...