Commemorate One Year of Social Distancing

On March 16, 2020, Santa Clara County, along with six other Bay Area jurisdictions, became the first region in the U.S. to order residents to stay at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When I started this blog, I honestly thought it was going to be a three week pop-up blog. I thought that once the Order expired, everything would go back to normal. The boys would go back to school to finish off the school year. My husband would go back to work on a daily basis. I would go back to grocery shopping and running errands with my then one year old. One year later, we are still social distancing, masking up and thoroughly washing hands. Some things have changed for us since last March though. We moved to Hawaii. The boys are able to go to in-person preschool. We are no longer strictly ordering groceries through a delivery service and wiping everything that comes into the house down. We have figured out how to live while a pandemic rages around us.

To be honest, it has been a hard year. It’s not all roses and toilet paper crafts around here. It’s hard to transition to new state, develop a new routine and find a new community while social distancing. It’s hard to have work life balance when everything is mushed together. It’s hard to get a break from the kids when there is no where to go. I know that my relationship with my husband and each of ours kids have gone up and down this past year. Some days are a physical, emotional and spiritual struggle to get through. But one year later, I can look back with a warm and full heart. I am thankful that we have been healthy. I mean, not even a sniffle (I hope they keep the temperature checks and constant handwashing at school once this is all over). I am thankful to have so much family time while our kids are small and still want to be around us. A few days ago, I was telling our boys how one day they might not live with us anymore, like how I don’t live with my parents and their dad doesn’t live with his parents. They both gave me a big hug and said, “We are never leaving you.” Okay!

Today, we put on the 365th link on our COVID-19 toilet paper chain. Each link marked with a date going back to March 16, 2020. I haven’t decided when we will stop putting on links. When we are all fully vaccinated? When we stop social distancing? But one thing is for sure, in twenty years when we open our COVID-19 time capsule, we will look at this toilet paper chain, have a good laugh and think — we must have been bored during pandemic!