Today is one of those rare moments. I’m up but all of the other beings in my house are back in bed. It doesn’t happen often that Darryl goes back to bed but he’s been getting up before 5 a.m. for the past week and it finally caught up with him. Me? I’ve been sleeping poorly myself but I finally slept well. That gets us to here: I am up and Darryl just went back to bed. The furry things? Just about anytime it’s quiet around here it seems like a good time for them to nap.
As rare as it is, I enjoy these mornings. Even more so, I enjoy these mornings when the sun is also shining and the promise of late spring and then summer is in the air. Today, as I sit here in relative quiet – with only the tapping of my keyboard to make noise – it’s a beautiful view. The sun has just risen over the hill in the distance, casting long shadows over the ground. The dew glistens here and there and if you look really closely, you can see the start of the buds of trees. Morning, indeed, has broken, and in more ways than one.
Today is Easter Sunday. A year ago, we met my sister Mary and her husband, Lyle, for a walk in Allegany State Park the Saturday before Easter. That was the totality of our Easter celebration. I was sad and I had cried, due to the sheer loneliness of missing my sisters. Today? We’re having a big family dinner at my sister Michele’s house. The difference? Seven of 11 of us are vaccinated and the only ones who aren’t are the younger, low-risk generation. After a miserable outdoor Christmas that was thwarted by rain and wind, an indoor Easter with light streaming in through the windows sounds like bliss.
In a lot of ways, today also marks the beginning of the end of our pandemic. For the first time, all of us are comfortable getting together and feeling like it’s a very low-risk, if not risk-free, celebration. In the next few weeks as the weather warms, I’ll restart travelling for clients and Darryl will plan for Lake Placid Ironman. I’ve now got five vacations planned over the next year. We also plan on calling our contractor and having him come in and give us a quote and a timeline for when he can finish the inside of our house. Renovations probably won’t start until the fall – he’s in pretty high demand – but we will have at least made the illusory “list” whereby we can envision a renovated future.
Additionally, in July, I begin to slow down again as I begin to work the equivalent of one day a month less. It may not seem like a huge deal but, to me it makes all of the difference in the world.
And that leads me back to today where I sit with my feet propped up on the coffee table, laptop resting on my thighs and cup of coffee resting beside me on the couch. The sun is still casting long shadows and periodically, the chirping of the birds now interrupt the relative silence.
It’s April 4th. There are still weeks to go until the weather gets reliably warm every day and the foliage completely pops out. But just as it feels like the beginning of the end of the pandemic, it feels like it’s the end of the beginning for a new year. Somehow, these two events – the pandemic and the new year – were inexorably linked in my mind: as the pandemic ends, the world opens up and begins anew.
I have a lot of hope for this year. It feels like a brand new start for me. In March, I started to get vaccinated, just five days after my birthday. In April, I will have my first big celebration with my family. In May, I will travel for a client again and have a bridal shower for my niece. In June, I will work my last month at this pace. In July, as I slow down, my niece gets married, my husband does Ironman and we head off for the first of our five vacations. In September, we will take our second vacation and our contractor will hopefully arrive. We have more vacations planned in December, February and March of next year. Perhaps when the year is over, my “new normal” will look and feel much more like my old normal.
What I have to guard against the most, however, is that urge to hurry things along or wish the year could go faster. This is a year meant to be slowly enjoyed. To appreciate each new thing as it arrives. To fully embrace the opportunities the year provides and to truly appreciate the slow return to normalcy I couldn’t even fathom would happen last year.
I had a tough pandemic. While I’m largely happy being socially isolated with my husband and our two furry beings, I realize that I also need people. Not a lot of people, mind you. But a few people now and then. I also like the hustle and bustle of the world. It doesn’t mean I have to be a big part of it. I like to go experience it for a short while and then race back to my quiet little life out here on our little homestead. But, I need the world and I need the safety of what is normal to me. So, I look forward with hope. And for the first time in a long time, that hope doesn’t feel like wishful thinking anymore.
Just like I am learning to enjoy the quiet of the morning and watching the fat robins play in the yard, I’ll learn to enjoy the slow and steady pace of my world reawakening.
The Yuppie Homesteader 