Says me to her, “My house is not clean. It is a kip.” Grumble grumble agree agree it’ll be grand sure etc…
It has not been clean since March 12th and it shall probably remain in such a state until the day before I go back to school when I do my annual “ALL THE EVERYTHING NEEDS DONE AND CLEANED TODAY” day…”
I ventured further. “I don’t know WHAT it’d take to motivate my arse to clean to be honest”.
And then this morning, I received THE TEXT.
The text that we have all forgotten…The text that is pretty much the main reason ANY of us had clean houses before Lockdown, but which we haven’t yet realised to be responsible for our semiclean homes…
My friend sent the beloved-dreaded message “I’m coming for a cuppa”.
And suddenly, something in the biosphere shifted and I remembered what motivation felt like.
Within an hour, I’d “tidied” and dusted and hoovered and wiped and bleached and sprayed…
Mammies. I even… Mopped. The. Floors.
I shit you not.
Who knew? My house needs visitors just as much as I do!
Try it.
But be sure it’s YOU who sends the text!
Otherwise, you might end up mopping YOUR floor too.
I haven’t learned a new language. I haven’t made banana bread. I haven’t decluttered my house. I haven’t painted the house. I haven’t organised my life. I haven’t sorted my garden. I haven’t watched box sets. I haven’t made a mood board. I haven’t lost loads of weight. I haven’t found zen. I haven’t had a calm and relaxing time. I haven’t caught up on the stuff I always thought I just needed “time” to get done. I haven’t used this time to research stuff or “better” myself. I haven’t cut out caffeine or alcohol. I haven’t found positives in every feckin moment. I haven’t found that I LOVE zoom calls or quizzes. I haven’t finished that novel I’m writing. I haven’t got the cleanest house ever. I haven’t cooked wholesome meals every day. I haven’t found harmony that was apparently missing from my life.
I haven’t learned loads about myself.
Well actually, no.
That I HAVE done.
I’ve learned that I’m a fricken machine.
A machine who is able to admit her weakness and fear and know that it is OK to be overwhelmed.
A machine who kept her family relatively well, fed and feeling safe throughout a global pandemic.
A machine who up until last week, worked more than full time at my job job while simultaneously being Mammy and Wife and keeping my kids entertained, fed and even someday, educated (😂😂😂😂I say this lightly).
A machine who has tried to fully support her other half as he fought to maintain our family’s business.
A machine who has been “fine” until the kids are in bed, when I’d then cry or rant.
A machine who dealt with loss and fear and all of the anxiety and stress that came to us all with this shitstorm.
A machine who has missed people and longed for interaction and normality.
A machine who hid her own stress and fear from her babies to make sure that their fears were, and are, minimal.
Actually, I’m not a machine.
I’m just a Mammy. I’m a me.
And just like every one of you, I’ve had my good days and shit days and I know there’s more of both to come.
But today is sunny and beautiful and so I’m raising a feckin glass to MYSELF and to each of you… To all of us machines who don’t need to have done loads of shit that Instagram tells us to, to feel validated and strong.
It doesn’t matter if you’re riding out of this on a gilded unicorn, farting glitter and fablis and enlightened… or sliding out sideways, glass in hand shouting “woohoo!”… like a badger’s arse, clawing towards whatever finish line you’re aiming for, you are here and you are brilliant just as you are.
But we’ve all been landed into a theme park that we had not planned to visit, and it seems that we all have to travel on a whole series of rollercoasters before we get to leave.
It’s a bit like a bad movie, isn’t it? “2020 – The Theme Park of Covidcoasters…”
We’ve been on one already.
On March 12th, all of us were hustled into little carriages and we’ve all travelled on our own Covidcoaster through lockdown. For many of us, the track was scary and bumpy, but not too terrifying. For many of us, it’s been an absolute nightmare and we step off it, battered and bruised and a big bit heartbroken. For so so many, the rollercoaster still included working either from home or from the frontline… Every single person has had to travel on their own rollercoaster and every single one of us is absolutely allowed to feel a bit shaken by whichever track we were on.
Friday’s news of further relaxation of the lockdown restrictions came as a bit of a surprise to me.
I had taken a few days off social media this week and so I’d missed the usual leaks of announcements that always precede the actual announcements. I can’t say I was emotionally able for it. I wasn’t emotionally able for very much this week if I’m honest.😂
So the announcement that we are able to travel anywhere within our own county AND the realisation that things might just begin to move back towards our old normal a little faster than we’d hoped, was quite a gunk.
Add to that the realisation that we can look forward to opening our gym in July rather than August, and an already emotional trainwreck of a Mammy became an absolute blubbering mess! ❤
Messages began to come to my phone…promises of coffee dates and delight as friends realised they can finally visit parents and siblings. Our beloved family and friends who have been so far away and yet so close since March, can now be visited and seen for the first time in almost 4 months. Lists of shops and businesses were announcing their new opening dates on their social media, creating a whirl of anticipation and excitement in my tummy.
It is indeed a rollercoaster.
We’re already in our carriages, strapping ourselves in, slowly ascending; knowing that there would be a sudden burst of speed… But knowing it is coming and being ready for it are two different things.
Some of us now face going back to work earlier than we had anticipated. Some of us have had our time in lockdown cut short.
Many of us now have to start to put actual measures in place to reopen our businesses, rather than the hypothetical “maybes” that we have been working towards.
And of course, with childcare facilities still closed, much of the workforce are wondering how the heck any of this is going to happen and who is going to look after the children?
And so suddenly, in the midst of the sudden joy that came with the 20k restriction being lifted and phase 5 being no more, a new and unexpected series of worries and problems are facing some of us.
While we have longed for this to be over, how many of us were actually ready for things to suddenly burst back to life? ❤
We’re in our rollercoasters but the safety barrier doesn’t seem to be quite secure. It’s a white knuckle kind of ride and it may be bumpy.
But the thing about rollercoasters, is that they begin and they move and they go up and down and spin around and round, but they eventually always slow down again and return to a pace where we can breathe easy again and eventually step back onto the platform.
And now, we all step onto the next rollercoaster in the Covid theme park. It’s going to take us on another journey.
And it’s uncertain and frightening and exciting and wonderful all at once.
Whichever carriage you are in, I hope you have time to put your safety barriers down (or on!) and that you step off this particular stage of the journey a little further on and a little closer to contentment and normality.
And I hope that you all get to see someone who makes you smile in the next few weeks.
Every year, I teach Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’, whether it’s on the course or not.
I love it. And I love passing his wisdom on to my students. Sometimes, the hardest decision is the best one to make. The obvious, “easier” route may be more appealing; safer even, and yet those who took the road less travelled, will always in hindsight, confirm that it was the right road to take.
I love to use it as an encouragement to my students that they shouldn’t always follow the crowd, that they don’t HAVE to take the road that they feel has been laid out or paved for them. That when it comes to it, they must follow their gut and trust their instincts, and that no matter which road they choose, it will carry them onwards, to somewhere.
And yet this year, for the class of 2020, I cannot use this as I always do. Because this particular class group are not in control of their choices as they should have been. They have all been directed towards a new road; a road NEVER taken by any of us before them.
“knowing how way leads on to way…”
And unfortunately, the lay of the land means that there is no safe or usual road for them to pass through the end of school and on to the next stage of their journey.
It’s new and unchartered territory for them, for their parents and for all staff in the schools they attended.
And yet… this time next year, they WILL have travelled this new road. It will have brought them to their next destination.
A year from now, they will have moved through the current chaos and will be looking back on this time, glad that it has passed and no longer stressed by the situation.
Some of them will be working, or in college, or at university; physically or virtually…who knows? They might still be at home, having taken a year out, waiting for the course they plan to do to start, excited and ready to begin the next stage of their lives.
And while there is still uncertainty for our Leaving Cert students, and none of us can know where their roads will take them, this is not new. This uncertainty is the one thing that they ARE getting to experience like every other LC group before them.
And yet, for all of them, in a few months time, that uncertainty will have passed and they will be travelling on the next road of their journey. They will not still be standing at the crossroads wondering which road to take.
The road onto which our young adults are stepping, is new. None of us have been through it. So really, none of us are in a position to tell them how they should feel or how it will go.
I used to always tell mine “You’ll be fine, just like everyone who has done it before you.” I can’t say that this year. (Firstly, because they are not in front of me, and secondly, because they are trailblazing a new road.)
We old fogies have not been through this before them. We can not fully understand. We shouldn’t pretend to.
This group have lost much. They’ve lost their right of passage through the final weeks of school. They’ve missed their last classes with favourite teachers (and the joy of a final class with not so favourite!).
They’ve missed prizegivings. They’ve missed graduations. They’re missing their end of year celebrations; parties, masses, whatever events and celebrations that are traditional to their individual schools that they have expected and looked forward to for the past six years. For many, they’re missing the ending of 14 years together, through national school to now.
And as adults, we shouldn’t dismiss their sadness at missing these things. These losses are as important to them as our problems are to us right now.
But onwards they WILL go. And while they are indeed on a road never before taken, they will travel onwards.
To our school leavers, (especially to my own brilliant and inspirational young people) I want to wish you well. You are bright and talented and the world is yours for the taking. Trust and stay positive.
A year from now, you will look back. You will have moved on. You will be on the next stage of your journey, and while you will have travelled there on a new road, an uncertain road and a perhaps frightening road, there was a road. And you took it and it is taking you forwards.
And I truly hope that you know that wherever it has taken you, it is the road you were meant to be on.
As Frost said, “I-I took the road less travelled, And that has made all the difference.”
The air was quiet…too quiet. One might say it was “dead”.
A building which usually fizzles with energy, when empty, lies in eerily quiet nothingness.
The decorations for the St Patrick’s Day that never was, and the notes on my whiteboard, are colourfully tragic reminders of how this virus lifted us out of our schools, giving no heed to sentiment or custom.
There is a calmness that made me shiver… all energy is stilled.
It’s as if the building is holding its breath…waiting.
And then, I heard a voice outside. A familiar voice of a staff member downstairs. He didn’t know I was there. But I heard him.
And so I let go MY held breath, switched on my computer and logged in to my other world.
Then, I swung open the windows, played Musical soundtracks at full volume, and sang along as I worked.
I’m sure he heard me.
And in creating small noises, I reminded myself, and him I hope, that all it will take to reignite the energy in our beautiful cold building, is individual noises.
And individual noises, EVEN when complying with social distancing, will still build and grow into big noises; collective noises, noises which create energy.
While my first reaction was sadness at the “empty chairs at empty tables”, I think about the noises; the voices of the students who will eventually sit back on these seats, at these tables; each one a vital note in the song that is our school.
Our school is more than a building.
It’s an energy, created by the voices that combine to makes its noise; to sing its song.
And although we might be quiet right now, there is still a murmer…
A murmer that begins as soft, quiet, individual, but that will soon be together, performing once again, in harmony and syncopated rythyms.
We will sing again and these tables are only empty momentarily.
And the building will once again breathe and our air will be noisy and “awake” again.
The S-Mum 