March 9, 2023

Ordinary

A year ago, my mental health was terrible—a sentence that will be evergreen for me until the end of June—but early March was a particular low point, my anxiety ramped up again and me still so far from understanding how it played such a dominant role in my mindset and how much of my worldview was informed by a catastrophic thinking I’d just accepted as normal. I remember one of our first dinners out in a restaurant and not being able to enjoy it at all, because I spent the entire meal quite sure that we were all going to die quite shortly, and it was almost a little bit fascinating to look around me and see how everybody else was just taking it on the chin.

It was not a good time. And yet, there was sweetness. We were moving through March and the first one in three years that didn’t come with absolute dread. When my children brought their indoor shoes home for March Break, it wasn’t because I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t see the inside of a school again until September. We were eagerly anticipating our long awaiting trip to England, but Covid was also still surging, the idea of travelling was stressing me out, and I wasn’t sure that every March until the end of time would not take the shape of a spiral toward doom. I was incredibly moved last year to have our first ordinary March Break in such a long time, and so have my kids return to class as normal afterwards—but it also still felt precarious. Those convoy people had broken my soul. It felt so good for things to finally be okay again, but I still felt so far from okay.

And then this morning, 365 days from then. Another day of sunshine and blue skies, and there is this way the sunbeams appear in my kitchen around 8:30 in the morning from the southeast, making their way around my neighbour’s house and onto the counter, my cupboards, so golden, and my children were happy. We were putting lunches in their backpacks. They’ve stopped wearing masks to school. Iris had a school trip to the art gallery yesterday. Harriet’s school had an open house today so we could visit and see the zoo exhibits she and her classmates had built. Yesterday I had a meeting with my publishing team to hatch plans for my upcoming book. I spent the afternoon in a cafe finishing edits and eavesdropping on idiots, and then attended an event for International Women’s Day with wine and cheese, the first event held in the PRH office since March 4, 2020, back when everyone was wiping down surfaces out of an abundance of caution.

And this. The sun. This week. Today. In the deepest pit of pandemic despair, this ordinariness was everything I longed for, everything I missed to my very marrow. Backpacks, and laughter, and learning, and growing, and walking the route to school that I’ve been walking now for a decade. Things to look forward to. Moments to steep in. I am so so grateful, and so very happy, and tomorrow’s the last day of school before March Break and it feels like, instead of being stuck or in a spiral, we’re marching forward, forging new paths. Finally, finally. What a long, long road it’s been.