At the start of this whole COVID ordeal way back in March, I saw it all as a much needed break from life.
We had just moved, work was stressful, life in general was more than I could handle . . . then, suddenly I had no choice but to stay home and spend time with my children.
As time wore on, the lack of human connection started to become uneasy. My husband, a youth pastor, was often filming sermons or in Zoom meetings himself. During those times I was wrangling two small children and doing my best to prevent them from dashing into a Zoom screen in their freshly bathed birthday suits. I often failed.
I wasn’t able to attend women’s bible study, I’m still not able to. You see, initially my absence was due to keeping the kids busy because my husband was in a Zoom then. Now it’s due to lack of childcare and still wrangling children while my husband is leading youth in person. With my usual events shut down due to this pandemic and my husband being a leader in many of those events, I’m not only distant from friends but parenting alone while he is working.
The work of a young mother is never done.
In my sheer lack of other adult connection, I turned to social media. I’ve long been a blogger, but the immediate interaction comes in the social platform. Instagram and Facebook allowed me to see my friends and their children. We constantly comment and message back and forth about dull, mundane things.
But it makes me feel involved in life.
Am I on my phone too much? Probably. But sometimes I need to talk to another mom, a friend, and find out I’m not alone.
