Life on Pause Has Its Perks

Recently my 11-year-old daughter said: “I actually like this summer. It’s more chill and I like being home a lot.”

A few days later, she said something even more surprising: “I’m glad the pool is closed and that we don’t have a schedule to follow.”

There are some perks to Life on Pause during the pandemic. Families are cooking together, eating together, walking together, talking together. There is more time, lots of time, to do the things that we otherwise might not have found the time to do – or, to do nothing at all.

My oldest daughter has started her own baking business. My husband makes homemade sourdough bread each week and delivers it to friends and family. I take long walks each morning with friends or alone, listening to interesting and inspirational podcasts and audiobooks. My youngest daughter has taken to making doll clothes out of old socks.

Putting the Breaks On

It feel nice not to race from one event to the next or try to plan family and friend get-togethers between everyone’s busy sports and activity schedules.

When we do get together, in small groups in the backyard, there is a uniform appreciation of this slower lifestyle. Between anxious talk about COVID-19 and important discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement, the conversation often turns to gratitude for the slowed-down pace of our usually busy American lives.

A friend, who lives in an out-lying suburb and usually spends her days shuttling her four kids from place to place, is spending much of her summer in the backyard, by the pool, enjoying the company of family and friends with a cool summer drink in hand. This forced slowdown has her realizing that she’s burned out and this pause is something she desperately needed.

No one would wish this pandemic on anybody and its toll on our country is awful. But if there’s a silver lining to it, it’s the fact that we’ve been forced to slow down. And there’s a real community to it: Most everyone’s kids are home from summer camp; most everyone’s vacation is scuttled; most everyone’s holiday plans are canceled.

We’re All in This Together

We’re all in the same situation, so there’s a bonding over it.

It’s a marked detour from how us high-achieving, over-involved Americans usually operate.

When I lived in New York City as a young 20-something, I remember getting caught up in the “city that never sleeps.” If I didn’t have plans every night of the week, I felt like a loser. It was a high-paced social dynamic that was reflective of the go-go-go pace of one of the biggest, most exciting cities in the world.

But even New York was forced to put life on pause as the pandemic sadly spread through a city where shoulder-to-shoulder subway and bus rides are a way of life.

Slowing down and spending more time with loved ones is a rare bright spot to the awfulness of the coronavirus pandemic. And I’ve really tried to embrace it.

I’m Bored!

When my kids whine, “I’m bored,’’ I tell them that boredom is OK, even welcome sometimes. It give them an opportunity to use their creativity and imagination to entertain themselves – without a screen – or simply embrace doing nothing at all.

I’m admittedly getting a bit used to this lifestyle. I really like using the hour I usually commute to and from work to go for my long, rejuvenating walk instead. I like seeing the creativity of my daughters’ minds to find different ways to entertain themselves away from organized activities. I like the intimacy of small backyard gatherings over large ones.

I want life to get back to “normal” for sure. But I hope I can take a little bit of the joy of this “pause” and make it a part of that normal.

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