When the lockdown in my state of New Jersey started, I wrote this nice little essay about how great the pandemic could be for our family because we would have all this glorious extra time. How wrong I was!

Here we are into week 5 of the lockdown and here’s how it’s going:

Working from home is hard when kids are also attending classes online. My mornings usually begin quietly. I get up first, let the kids sleep in a bit since they don’t have to log into school at any particular time. Then I walk the dog, fix a cup of tea, empty the dishwasher and open my laptop to start my workday while still in my pajamas. When I rouse the kids an hour later, my work focus becomes a little blurry. There are requests for breakfast, which I accommodate, because how often am I able to make them breakfast on a school day? After breakfast, it’s back to work for me as the kids log into Google Classroom to get their assignments for the day. Around mid-day, the teens get restless regardless of whether they’re done with their schoolwork or not. I encourage them to go outside for a little while, mostly encouraged because I need a break from them by that point.

Once school work is done, the ever-eating teens are looking for a meal again. I respond with “You’re on your own for lunch.”

After lunch, there is roughhousing, and laughing, and loud music as the teens try to unwind from their school day. Thank god they at least have each other to get through this new concept called social distancing in absence of their peers. I try not to get annoyed with them given that I’m still working for another few hours. We have a small condo without a lot of quiet, dedicated space for working from home. It’s usually at this point I retreat to the bedroom and pop in headphones so I can continue to work uninterrupted.

Around 3:00 I take a little break, have some lunch and run the vacuum or throw in some laundry.

If my husband is home, it can be more challenging to sink my teeth into my tedious accounting workday. He is a nurse, so on his days off, he is extremely stressed about the hospital working conditions and lack of Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) during this pandemic, which I wrote about here. Rightfully so, he finds it difficult to unplug from the news and social media. He can’t turn off the need to want to DO something to help resolve the horrendous situation healthcare workers are faced with each day. I am proud of him as he makes phone calls, reads news articles, and touches base with his nursing union and his colleagues. In the background, I am churning away with my boring accounting work, thankful I have a job that doesn’t involve any sort of risk, but it still requires my attention and focus, which can be hard found.

When my workday ends at 4:30, I push myself to pull on workout clothes and either go for a run, do a HIIT (high interval intensive training) workout or a boxing workout (great for relieving stress). Some days, the effort to move my body the way I’m accustomed feels heroic. Some days I just want to curl up and take a nap. Occasionally, napping wins. After I return from the run or finish a workout, there’s dinner to consider.

The hungry teens are again ransacking the cabinets looking for food exclaiming “there’s nothing to eat”, even though there are options, although maybe not the usual options since I’m limiting trips to the grocery store for our safety. I get dinner on the table somewhere around 7:30. I had envisioned finally being able to eat at a ‘normal time’ while working from home, which never happens during a regular workweek since my 3-hour daily commute has me pressed for time every single night. But, alas, dinner is still late.

On the nights my husband works, I’ll do my quick disinfecting routine after he gets home to rid the house of any possible COVID-19 germs he may have brought home, yet it’s impossible to rid the house of the stress we’re both enduring from his profession. We eat dinner even later those nights, so we can all eat together as a family. Then the kids take their longboards outside for an hour or so, while we catch up with each other. If my husband can turn off his stress-filled brain enough, we’ll watch a movie or binge-watch the next best thing on Netflix. If not, I’ll think about writing, but will usually instead end up scrolling Facebook, Instagram and coronavirus articles online, also finding it difficult to turn my attention away from the chaos in the world.

Then it’s bedtime. I will fall asleep for about an hour and then suddenly awaken thinking about the craziness of the world. My mind spins with questions like — will my husband lose his job because he’s advocating for safe working conditions? How will we make ends meet if he does lose his job? Will we get sick? Will I get laid off or furloughed? Even though I have a very secure job, it’s still a possibility. I drift in and out of restless sleep filled with strange dreams and unanswered questions until my cell alarm clock prods me awake the next morning to do it all over again.

At the start of the lockdown, I felt compelled to use all this supposedly extra time to be productive. I put a lot of pressure on myself to make the best use of this time. I had a list of things to get done and I did pretty well tackling the list.

I reorganized closets and cabinets.

I painted a hallway or half of it until I ran out of paint and couldn’t justify risking a trip to the store for more.

I baked homemade bread.

I made delicious comfort foods, including banana bread which seems to be a pandemic staple.

I made my own disinfecting wipes.

We have spent more time with the kids, and we’ve had some laughs including an impromptu karaoke dance party.

I’ve long craved a simpler life devoid of the chaos that usually overtakes my work week, so I thought this lockdown would provide me with an opportunity to embrace simplicity and to an extent, it has. However, it is hard to ignore we are in the middle of something we’ve never before experienced and it leaves us with dark, underlying, unsettled feelings which are difficult to shake. Despite my best efforts to draw up the corners of my little world and create a protective environment away from the uncertainty unfolding, I feel like outside my window the Big Bad Wolf is yelling, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blooow your house down!” And, I’m scared.

My to-do list has gone out the window and has been replaced with simple tasks like; get out of pajamas, take a shower, make some food, and get my work done. The to-do list has been usurped by the fear of what comes next.

So, if you’re like me — finding it difficult to feel comfortable in our new lockdown roles, let’s all take a collective deep breath and give ourselves and those around us a lot of grace. These are uncharted waters for us, and we’re all in this together. Be well.