I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The day-to-day of life can sometimes feel so monotonous and even with all of my greatest blessings right in front of me, swarming around me all the live long day, I still often struggle to feel happy, to be happy. But I want to. I really do. I want to just be innately joyful, quick to smile, laugh, play. I think I always used to be a "glass-half-full" kind of person, but lately I've had a tendency to be a bit more quick on the draw with complaints, especially with Robert. The thought that there is a choice to be happy, just because you want to be, for no other reason than to just BE happy and with no strings attached, feels so liberating. That's my goal this week. To just ease into a smile when it may not feel natural, or to hold my tongue when I feel a complaint about to seep from my lips. Not today Satan! I am happy for no reason and that's the end of it!
The kids go back to school in a few weeks. It's hard to even believe summer is coming to an end. It feels like it's gone by in a blink and yet it's been our longest summer yet, with distance learning ending mid-May. The Adseros have been here all summer and it's felt like a dream to kind of quarantine with them. The kids have been in heaven. Most schools across the country are either doing distance learning or some hybrid of distance learning and in-person school for the first term as they carefully open because of COVID. Our school district was initially planning to go back full-time in-person but have now scaled back to two days a week in-person and three days distance learning so more social distancing can take place. I was actually considering homeschooling my girls because I was nervous about sending them into a packed classroom five days each week, so I am somewhat grateful for the change in plans. I'm not sure how working parents or single parents are ever going to be able to make that work. It's going to be bananas and I feel awful for them. I am grateful I'm able to be home with my kids so decisions like these are so much less taxing on our family and we can weather them a bit more easily.
Houston's COVID numbers are out of control, so they are all distance learning for awhile. Charlotte will stay here with her boys until after Eldon is baptized in early September and then they will head to their new home there, which they've never even seen in person before! I think this summer has been a major whirlwind for them and I'm so grateful they've had their cabin to come to amidst all of this, and that we've been able to be together so much. I'd love to be able to drive down there and quarantine with them this fall for a bit, but I'm not sure how realistic that will be. Robert is still working from home, which he's done since March. This new life we've been living now for the last four months is still so surreal. 2020 has thrown us so many curveballs and yet here we are, still standing with most of our sanity intact.
The world feels heavy in so many ways right now, and it is hard to really justify feeling happy when everything feels so uncertain and so many people seem so angry. The government is a mess, the economy is a mess, there is so much racism, sexism, judgement, hate, cruelty and evil that it seems impossible to eradicate it all, to find happiness in a world filled with so much heaviness. But I want to feel light. I want to be light. I want to know those things are there, find ways to make positive changes in my little corner of the world, and in spite of it all, after going through it all, still feel happy. I'm going to try, really hard anyway, to do just that. And while doing so, I'm going to try and help my kids finish out this summer with a bang. We are heading down for a long (super HOT) weekend in St. George with the Adseros this upcoming weekend and I am so excited for a change of scene. We have been home pretty much all summer, besides a small stint in Idaho and a trip to the cabin. A little getaway will be a nice change.
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