I’ve had about enough of this pandemic, ya’ll.

We talk about this thing every Wednesday on Staring at Goats and initially it was kind of a fun podcast where we researched stuff, and chatted about how we’re doing. I’m still glad we have the show, but it’s one that I am absolutely, without a doubt, 100% done with doing. Not because I don’t love hanging with my brotato, Jacob, and Travis, but because I’m done hanging out by myself every other day of the week.

There are millions of other people in much more difficult situations that me, so I’ll say that first. This is just where I am in my own pandemic grief process. Most of the “pain” of it all, if I can call it that, is that I’m watching my five year old miss out on an entire year of his childhood. This year was going to be his first year in Kindergarten. His year away from us, beginning to experience his life without us being around. He deserved that, and he didn’t get it.

Homeschool has been going well, at least most of the time. There are days, and a week here are there, where it’s just the most difficult thing that we have to deal with. Honestly, I feel like it’s the wrong kind of relationship for us to have with him as his parents. We aren’t meant to be beating our heads against a table like this. There are plenty of times where we will, but this continued teacher/student thing is just rough. Home is meant to be the safe place where you can enjoy and have fun. It’s not supposed to be the place where things out of your control are forced on you.

We’ve been quarantining more than a lot of people might be because we have a few high-risk situations surrounding us that means we can’t be as cavalier about going out and doing things as we might otherwise be. I mean, we wouldn’t do anything wreckless, but a trip to a store with masks and such would be more in the realm of possibility. This kind of quarantine has realy left us with not many outlets for getting outside these four walls. It also means that we’re the only playmates Sam really has. That’s yet another weird thing that shouldn’t be. He needs other kids to play with.

We decided to rent a place on the beach for a few days just to get away and I’m excited about it. It’s cold and it’s probably going to be super windy out there, but I’m ready for it. It’ll be nice just to have a change of scenery for a bit. I’m planning to work from there and Sam will do school a few days, but then we’re just going to play. It’s a pricey trip, all things considered, but at this point, it’s worth it. Being locked in this house, with all of its chores and work staring us in the face, is going to kill us. Being somewhere else might just give us the recharge we need to make it until the vaccines hit.

If you’re going through something similar to this, I hope you can find some joy throughout these days. It’s real hard sometimes, and it becomes too much at times, but there’s another side to this. We’re all going to go a bit crazy and it feels like it’ll never end, but in a few years we’ll look back at it and talk about what a rough ride it was. There will be a time when we say, “Remember when we had to live through that virus?” I really hope that we can put this in our rear-view mirror soon.

I’m done with it.