Meditation on the Long, Lonesome Pandemic

I often think of Wilson from Castaway when I think about surviving isolation

I live with two teenagers. And no one else. They are sixteen and fourteen-years old and they are good kids. They get good grades. They can be trusted to have good judgement on social media (maybe not the amount of time they spend on it, but the content of what they post). My oldest has a girlfriend of 7 months, and she’s a good kid too. (Thank God, because she lives on the next block and I can only imagine how hard it would be if he were dating Rizzo from Grease).

But, they are still teenagers. They watch TikTok, share memes, speak in slang, scream, emote, occasionally punch a wall, and think about the opposite sex A LOT. One of them dances constantly and the other one mocks her for it. The other longs to be eighteen so he can have some new kind of freedom he imagines comes with being an “adult.”

Our worst family fight since the panedmic rolled into our lives in March had to do with an essay/post by author George Saunders, which I read aloud at the kitchen table, about the value of personal freedom in comparison to the value of collective sacrifice. Believe it or not, the fight was intense and traumatic. No one felt good afterward.

In our home — since March — we’ve had a notable amount of rage, tears, feelings, and hormones…and togetherness.