Staying Connected to Loved Ones in Memory Care During COVID-19

Since the company I work for does marketing for senior living, I was able to write a post about how this is affecting me personally that they shared on their blog today. So hop on over and check it out.

SPC

One of the highlights of the shelter-at-home order is that I have nothing on my schedule that prevents me from attending virtual happy hours with my SPC friends.

When I was working at my first job, I became friends with a girl, Red, whose sister worked at Garmin. There were some guys there who played volleyball, and since Red played in high school and was new to the area, her sister suggested she join them to meet people. Not wanting to go alone, she asked me to go with her. We had a blast and started hanging out with them and their friends.

The group grew to encompass 25-30 people from Garmin, K-State, Sprint, volleyball teams and people who were only connected through other members. Because there wasn't one factor that linked us all, a girl started referring to our group as the Social Planning Committee, or SPC for short.

We were all single and in our 20s. Many of them weren't from KC. We played volleyball a couple of nights a week, went out dancing on Saturday nights, and grilled out together Sundays. We became roommates with each other, took trips together, celebrated Thanksgiving Eve with drinks around the world at a local bar, went to concerts, and did life. We became each other's family.

As time went on, we went through weddings and divorces, miscarriages and death of parents. Some people moved away. A few new people joined the group. As our kids got older and more involved with activities, our schedules filled up. We saw each other less and less - a couple of times a year instead of a couple of times a week.

Despite those obstacles, over the last 20 years we've still managed to keep in touch. We set up a Facebook group page. We still hung out on Thanksgiving Eve and got together for birthdays when we could. But I felt a real sense of loss. I love my husband, kids, mom and sisters, but I still miss my SPC family.

Since the first week of shelter-in-place though, we've had a weekly Zoom happy hour. And it's been awesome. There've been 10-15 of us log in and chat for an hour or so. It's been a bright point in a storm, and I'm grateful for it.

He Is Risen

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

A lot of my focus and posts have been on the anxiety and negativity caused by this quarantine. I've felt lonely and frustrated and stressed and irritated and tired and wanted to scream. It's created strain in my marriage, impatience in my parenting and tension at work. But there are good things. It's forced us to slow down. We used to run from activity to activity. And I do actually feel like those were good for the kids - they didn't have that many things each - but 2 activities per kid is 6 for me to shuttle them to. So not having anywhere to go on the weekends has helped me get a little more done with housekeeping (though admittedly not as much as is needed), and to have time to rest and not feel guilty. And to start to ask the question - what does God want me to learn from this?

This quarantine has been a time of seclusion and reflection for many. I've not spent as much time in  the word as I should, but I do pray about it often. It's a season of waiting. It seems as though there should be a growth of some kind. Easter was today. The resurrection. Death of the old; birth of the new. I'm praying to hear God's will for me in this time, so I can emerge from this season in alignment with Him.

Lord of the Flies

Art class color wheel assignment

School started this week. Which basically meant that the kids got away with murder because I just needed them out of my hair so I could work. It's like Lord of the Flies here. They're going to have fond memories of the quarantine. "Remember when Mom didn't have the capacity to discipline us so we got to do whatever we wanted? Good times."

The house is a mess, V did no school work (the girls were good about it), the lunch menu went out the window and they may have had pizza 3 days in a row (I think?), the dog is stir crazy, my body aches from typing in weird places because I have no office/desk and none of the tables and chairs are the right size for me, we found out that our office is planning for us to work from home through the end of May, and V got stung by a wasp - that was somehow in our house on a 30 degree day?

But my anxiety has lessened amid the chaos, so feeling grateful.