This year many folks were able to slow down and reflect upon their priorities and choices. Many articles were written about the new pace of life, ways to develop new patterns, and the ability to reflect. It seems this pandemic period was a time for many to take stock of their livelihoods and make conscious changes for their mental and physical health and wellbeing.
This was not the case for my year. I did not have extra time to dedicate - in fact I had less time than ever. And while I know this is not unique to me, sometimes reading the social media posts of my peers or reading those headline articles, it appears as if I’m in the minority. Even before the pandemic, I knew this was going to be a hard year, which is my focus word for 2020 was survive, and that is exactly what I did.
I acknowledge I am very privileged, and have maintained that privilege throughout the pandemic. I have steady employment, housing, and my health - 3 things which many Americans do not have. Yet, as a mother of two school aged children, the lack of in-person education, coupled with not being able to work in the office, has had a drastic effect on our family. In fact, I was in school myself at Harvard for much of the year, with so much demands on my time and brain space. Frustrations with our children and between our children are the highest they have ever been.
As a working mother, balance has never been easy. And this year the working part became even heavier - I was promoted to Maharam’s parent company, Herman Miller, which was certainly cause for celebration. But the new position, on a very new team, in a department whose resources were needed most during a pandemic, was almost untenable. I still have yet to meet my team or my coworkers in-person. And I never imagined the amount of work, and the pace of it, that would be required. Again, I’m not alone here, many mothers have felt the crush this year.
My husband and I realized that this year we got less sleep than any year since we had newborns. (He is in IT and spent countless hours this year setting up remote work systems, shuttling external monitors and the like to folk’s homes across Chicago, securing technology when none was available, etc.) Our relationship has suffered, as we spend our evenings after kids are in bed doing work, or chores that we might have previously done on a lunch hour or tacked on to a commute. When we do reunite on the couch, we’ve rarely had the energy to converse about day-to-day, much less reflect on our situation or the world as a whole.
And simultaneously there has been so much more that needed to be talked about and processed and acted upon. Racial justice. Homicidal police. Disparity. Science-based solutions. Democracy. Hard goodbyes. Heroes goodbyes.
Reflection is necessary. It is important to acknowledge what we’ve gone through in 2020, and recalibrate for our futures. That is why for 2021, I have chosen a focus word (not a resolution) of reflect. I didn’t have the time or space this year to do that properly, but I’m hoping 2021 can bring me the affordance to do so. I hope to walk out of 2021 with a better idea of my ongoing priorities and values, and ways to put them in action.
