Good Days, Bad Days

I take a medication that gives me really wild and vivid dreams.  Every day I wake up hoping this is just one of those dreams and I'll tell everyone about it and they'll tell me how crazy it is, like they do with my other dreams, and we'll laugh and then make plans to go out shopping and for dinner.

And then I wake up and nope. Here we are. This is somehow actual real life in 2020.

Like everyone else, we're having our good days and bad days. Yesterday we were all pretty grumpy and short tempered. The kids all did some schoolwork, but there was enough frustration and lack of patience that I didn't push it. Today went a little better on that front - I worked 1:1 with N for his stuff, and the other kids worked mostly on their independent research projects that they chose to do.  Then I finally went ahead and bought them a course to learn to program Roblox games, and the hope/goal is that they'll all work together on it, to combine their various strengths. We'll see.

I'm having trouble finding the motivation I had last week to get things done. I spend most of my patience and energy on getting them to do schoolwork of some sort, and by the time that's done, I just can't seem to convince myself to do much more. This is always my coping strategy during stress though, to spend my time doing mindless things on the computer or reading, so I don't actually think about the rest of the things. Don't look too far ahead, or think about all the anxiety-causing things out of my control.

Even on the best of days, everything starts coming to a head between dinner and when the kids to go bed. The daily testing numbers are released, to fuel anxiety. We take stock of what we have and how long until we need to venture out into the world again. The kids get all amped up, and most nights (like tonight) I end up putting on my headphones and listening to music way too loud so I can block it out. It's no one's fault, they're not being bad or even different than they were earlier in the day, but 12 hours later my nerves are fraying.

Another day down. Another day when all my people are safe.  But who knows how much longer this will last, and if we'll all still be here and safe at the end.