Chapter 7: Who Opened Pandora's Box?

Psst! Have you Met the Family yet?

Holy moly. Welcome to level six of Jumanji, I guess. Senseless murders, looting, rioting, destruction of property, and I think somewhere in there there’s still a pandemic going on. So if whoever opened Pandora’s box could kindly shut it now, that’d be great. Thanks.

              On the upside, we’re now in advanced phase 2 of reopening. (Most) restaurants are open for dine-in at 50% capacity, or something like that. Although as I found out, Taco Bell is not. After having spent 20 minutes in the stupid long drive-through line, I realized upon leaving that they hadn’t handed me the drinks. I had paid extra for two freezes, so I wasn’t about to let that money go to waste. I turned back around, only to find the drive-through line even longer than before. So I parked and attempted to go in, but found the lobby was closed. I ended up calling them and they brought the freezes out to me, so it all worked out, but it added probably another 15 or more minutes on to the total time. Oh well, it’s all done and we’ve eaten and enjoyed our freezes.

              On top of restaurants opening, churches are allowed 50% capacity (instead of just 50 people), so Mom and Dad are happy. And best of all? Public pools may now be open. The kids are thrilled (especially Megan), and I hope we will get a chance to go swimming soon. I’ve started babysitting my boss' niece, though, so it makes it harder to schedule things like that. But it helps with the income issue since I’ve been knocked down to 14 hours a week.

 I’m still pretty miffed about the way I’ve been treated at work after everything I did for them, but honestly, now was the absolute best time for it. Not only was it super easy to get on unemployment, but Mom hasn’t been feeling well (not Corona, don’t worry), so it’s allowed me the extra time I need to help take care of her.

So I guess in some ways, things are looking up. More and more of our usual fun activities are opening up and things are just starting to feel normal again, sometimes. I mean, there’s still the social distancing BS and the mask-wearing and whatnot, but at least we can go out to eat again. And go swimming; plus we can play in the brand-new wave pool they just built/opened. And there’s a new bike park that just opened, too. So all of that is pretty cool. I’m trying to stay positive amidst all the other madness going on right now.

It’s truly a tragedy what happened, but I can’t believe there are actually people out there who feel the appropriate action is more violence. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Neither do three or four, or hundreds. All it does is make you no better than the criminal who murdered poor Mr. Floyd. I can only imagine the heartache his family is experiencing right now, but do we really think they want their community—and their country—destroyed over it? I don’t think so. I know I wouldn’t. It’s not fixing anything, and it certainly won’t bring him back. The last thing I would want is more turmoil and stress to have to deal with on top of what I’m already dealing with, but I guess far too many people don’t see it that way.

But, what do I know. I certainly don’t know what it’s like to be black in America (or anywhere else). But I do know that peace is more pleasant than war. I do know that looting and destroying a store owned by someone who had nothing to do with what happened to Mr. Floyd makes no sense. I do know that there are even more people left jobless because of these riots; of both races. So what is this really accomplishing?

              Anyway, here we are entering level six of Jumanji. Brace yourselves, and as always; stay well, my friends.

Chapter 6: Maybe the Kids Aren't Alright

My heart is broken tonight. I can’t stop thinking about the night recently that Megan came to me in tears, saying how she’s so lonely. This quarantine business is really getting to her, and I want so bad to be able to fix it, but I just can’t. I don’t know what to do for my poor baby. And I know it’s not just her. Millions of children on the cusp of puberty (and even adults well past puberty) are suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. This virus is killing people in more ways than just by infection. Depression is going to claim more lives during this time than infection, but what are we to do? Either we reopen and risk exposing the elderly and other high-risk people, or we don’t and we risk the lives of our children and other depression-battling people. We just can’t win.

              I myself have been struggling, too. It took longer to impact me, but even I have had my hours cut in half recently. I’m only working two days a week now, and left wondering how I’m going to provide for my family on just 14 hours a week. The first week off was the hardest. I felt so much anxiety, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve recently started getting back into art, and it’s helped some. But every time I think of our current situation and the entire situation, I feel so hopeless. This needs to end before it becomes so catastrophic we can’t recover.

Even the dog is exhausted

from being the emotional

support for a whole family.

Some of the art I've done recently.

              On a lighter note, Jack lost his first tooth the other day. He doesn’t believe in the tooth fairy, but he got a note and a dollar from her anyway. Even though he bit Steven in the process of getting it pulled. Despite that, it’s still a milestone and every child deserves a visit from the tooth fairy, whether they believe in her or not!

              And lastly, both kids (pretty much) finished another year of school! Megan actually still has some math to do, but she’s done with everything else, and with nothing but math to focus on, she should get through it pretty quickly. I just can’t believe one finished his first year of elementary and the other finished her last year of elementary. It blows my mind thinking I’ll have a middle-schooler next year. As far as Ronan, well he’s not in school yet, but he’s learned a new favorite word: “Wow!” And has also begun to support himself standing while holding onto furniture (although he still has trouble getting himself into a standing position, but he’ll stay standing if you stand him up next to something he can hold onto). These kids are just growing way too fast, and this year needs to start looking up soon so I don’t feel like it was just wasted time. The time I have with them is very precious and I want every minute to count!

Jack's home-made certificate of completion.

Megan's home-made certificate of completion.

              As always, stay well, my friends, and don’t give up. If you are also struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide, please seek help. National Suicide Hotline number: 1-800-273-8255 or text 741741.

Chapter 5: Regret

Well this last week has just flown by. Busy season has arrived at work, virus or no virus. Yet somehow they can’t quite find enough use for me to put me back to full-time like I was before maternity leave. Seems pretty skeevy to me, but whatever. They say it’s not related to the fact I went on maternity leave, but it’s awfully suspicious, don’t ya think? I’m trying to be okay with it; I keep reminding myself that the more time off work I have, the more time I have with the family. And I do really enjoy more time with the family. Unfortunately, the less time at work I spend, the less money I have to spend on family activities. It’s kind of a catch-22. I know you don’t have to spend lots of money in order to spend time with family, but it does make things more fun sometimes. I’m kind of running out of free and cheap activity ideas.

              Speaking of cheap, at least gas is still stupid cheap. I used my fuel points to fill up the car today (first time I’ve fueled up a car in over two weeks, and the last one I filled up was the van, not the car). Got my gas for 85 cents a gallon. Filled up to full from a quarter tank for less than $10. I don’t think I’ve ever seen gas that cheap in my life. Last time gas was that cheap was 1986, and even then it was actually a penny more, according to Google.

Ironically, the price matches the octane.

Seriously, when was the last time 

anyone saw that many gallons 

for that little money?!

              Back on the topic of activities. We haven’t done anything super exciting. We have gotten a lot of spring cleaning done. That makes me happy. In the process, we got my hope chest that I got from great-grandma cleaned off and I was able to open it up and reminisce on the contents. Inside, I found the bag of jewelry and earrings I inherited from my grandma when she passed away. I never have been much of a girly-girl, so I never really used the jewelry, and since I didn’t get my ears pierced until just a couple years ago, I never used any of the earrings either. However, I happen to have a daughter who is a very girly-girl, so I bestowed upon her the gift of the heirloom jewelry. She absolutely loved it, and is currently wearing some of the earrings. They look very nice on her and it’s really awesome seeing those earrings—which were some of Grandma’s favorites—being worn by her great-granddaughter. I think Grandma would approve.

              And on the topic of grandmas, and my great-grandma specifically, I sure do miss her. Well, I miss them both. But I’ve been thinking a lot about my great-grandma, maybe because a couple months ago marked the one-year anniversary of her death. But what I really can’t get out of my mind was how stupid I was for convincing myself we didn’t have time to go visit her last time we were in that area. We were right there, but because we were on a field trip I told myself we didn’t have time, we had to do xyz activity and log all this stuff for school. Honestly, what does any of that matter now? The museums are still there. The national parks are still there. My grandma is not. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that. I know I had no way of knowing she’d be gone in almost exactly three years from then, but that doesn’t matter. I should have known I didn’t have much time left with her. Even at that time she was nearly 97. And deep down, I knew she wasn’t immortal, but I guess I didn’t want to think about mortality. She’d survived three strokes and fully recovered, so why should I worry? Stupid way of thinking, I know. I regret it every day. I’m really sorry, Grandma.

              Anyway, enough on that depressing subject. Although I guess I don’t really have anything more to write about tonight. Maybe this coming week will be more eventful. As always, stay well, my friends.