*Trigger Warning: Contains Photos Of Child On Playground Equipment

**Note: Photos of Child On Playground Equipment From January 2019

In amongst the three-story dumpster fire of other things I suck at, I’m generally a piss poor optimist. I say that because I’ve always wanted to identify as one but overcoming my naturally somber and sardonic outlook is Sisyphean at times. 

Whether it’s that old adage about desperate times v. desperate measures, or I’m getting old, or the joy my family brings, or the amount of wine I’ve been drinking, I’m really looking forward to the end of our current troubles but even more so the lessons I’ve recently learned that future-me is carrying forward. None of them is pleasant, but I’m feeling enormously positive about working on all of them. 

In no particular order: 

Oh sure, “family comes first” when its a quick text message or even a nice chat at a convenient gathering but making real-time in a busy world? This week I chatted on the phone with my Grannie, the first time in a long time, for some forty-five minutes and it was amazing. She has hilarious anecdotes about the cloak-and-dagger world of keeping 2m away from Covidiots on her daily walks and given that her home is on lock-down, but for said brief fitness escape each day, it’s almost wrong how much buoyancy I took away from our conversation. 

How hard is it to make time to call your grandmother once a week and enjoy a genuinely pleasant conversation? It should not have taken a global pandemic for me to figure it out but here I am. Thanks, COVID-19. 

It turns out some of my friends really suck. Check your rage; check your privilege. #StayTheFuckInside is great for you with your massive house, large fenced yard, indoor climbing wall, your kids’ private playground set, a freezer big enough to hold three years food for a family of five and a car and bank account large enough to fill it at Costco. 

Those teenagers you’re shitting all over on the internet? They live with their single parent in a two-bedroom, third floor, apartment. Sorry that they’re too close together at the skate park. Hopefully, they can do better. Oh, we’ll just close that too. Life isn’t fair, but I’m fairly certain you can’t grasp that it’s easy to ask everyone to give up leaving their house without considering that not everyone has the same access to fitness or entertainment at home that you do. 

Also, you’re old. Sitting on your ass watching movies and drinking for a month isn’t a big deal to you. Kids today are experiencing something we’ve never had to go through: canceled sports, canceled school, canceled friends, canceled art class, canceled parties, canceled playdates, all at the same time and all for who knows how long. 

They absolutely need to have empathy for the members of our society that are most vulnerable and hopefully their parents are doing their jobs and reminding them regularly. We absolutely need to have empathy for them. 

My family is great about sitting down for dinner together most nights of the week. But it’s still usually rushed in a modern way as we endeavour to make time to read Claire’s stories and get her asleep at a proper time. We get it, a lack of sleep causes, and elevates, a lot of issues that kids are managing these days. 

I’m a fairly third-rate replacement for Claire’s favourite school friends – for one, I lack a five-year-old’s sense of humour – but all the time we’ve been spending together recently reminds me of how our life was before she started school and I want more. 

I’m certainly not the best at managing my own distractions but I’m doing better and I’m adamant it’s not going to stop with the end of COVID-19. If you’re wondering why you can’t reach me it’s because I’m putting my phone away, or turning it off, a lot more. I’ll get back to you, usually, and if I don’t then I apologize – we were probably working on bikes or building a puzzle, or she’s been teaching me Yoga, and I forgot. 

I’m going to ride my mountain bike tomorrow and regularly on local trails. I’m going to ride well within the limits of my confidence and abilities, keep the rubber side down, skip trails or features with higher consequences, and assuming no one hits me with their car* riding to or from the mountain I’m going to make it home just fine every time. I’m going to ride solo even though it’s actually probably a lower potential burden on the system if everyone pedals a few meters away from a buddy. 

I’m going to take my daughter hiking in the woods tomorrow and regularly as well because nature is the only jungle gym we have right now and walking around the block isn’t enough exercise of stimulation for a five-year-old. 

*It turns out some North Vancouver drivers are angry bike-hating assholes even when there’s no traffic to be frustrated about. 

I recognize that almost everything folks do for recreation is closed and the forest is the only piece of normal a lot of people have right now, so I’ll be there in non-peak times because I can. It helps reduce the burden on a resource a lot of folks are relying on right now for mental health. 

I understand that peak times are the peak because that’s when a lot of folks can go. I wish everyone would do the easy things like practicing physical distancing. I wish the land managers would look at other means of enforcement rather than just closing more and more areas and concentrating people in smaller spaces. 

More than anything, I understand that I’m making choices that could potentially, no matter how minuscule the chance, impact other people’s lives in a negative way. This is no different than any given day in the normal world except that here in bizarro pandemic land those impacts carry the potential to be much more egregious chain events and I’m going much further to manage risk because of it. 

Hopefully, everyone is doing their best to negate their chances of contracting or spreading COVID-19 while finding ways to hold on to enough of their normal to keep their mental health strong and their families happy. That’s going to look different to everyone. If you, like me, live in a house made of glass think very hard about your own behaviors before throwing stones at your friends. 

That lady buying soil and flowers isn’t evil, stupid, callous, or even inconsiderate and neither are you for walking up to the store for a case of beer. She just needs some time in her garden to find some joy in life as it is right now and that’s okay.