No. That title is not a typo.

It’s 9:45 Sunday night. I’m sitting in my bed on my laptop with something mindless playing on the TV. I’m currently writing research for work while prepping Google Drive files for week two of my children’s’ home instruction. I haven’t left my home or immediate neighborhood in 8 days.

And I’m to the bone tired.

Before this forced home-body life was our normal, I used to call my Sunday afternoon/evening feeling “Smonday”. It’s that moment when your Sunday stops feeling like the weekend and the anxiety of Monday creeps in. It used to happen to me around 5:00 p.m. when I started putting the entire family’s schedules side by side to build our week’s schematic. It always felt like a delicate game of Tetris, fitting each piece into the gameboard, making sure every child had a ride and every school have-to, reminder, flyer and detail was accounted for.

Now I have a whole new definition of Smonday. My Sunday turned into a Monday before noon today. It wasn’t the usual anxious feeling of not being sure we’d be able to pull it all off this week. No, this is a new feeling today. A feeling of dread, of fear, of having very little to look forward to, of uncertainty for how long we’d have to live this COVID-19, precautionary life. And after reading so many posts from mom friends on social media today, I can see I’m not alone. We’re all Smondaying. Hard. But I’ll take it a step further.

We’re grieving.

Yep. I know what you’re thinking. As moms of healthy families and children, what on earth do WE have to grieve about??

Plenty.

1. The loss of normalcy.
We may never go back to the normal we had before this virus. Ever. I know it. You know it. We just don’t talk about it. Regardless of how life goes, there will be pieces and parts that will be forever changed from now on. And we are all realizing that no matter how crazy our lives were pre-COVID19, we miss that life. We miss our “normal” and we don’t know when or if it’s ever coming back.

2. The loss of connection.
Even the most introverted of us moms were used to some form of connection each day prior to house arrest. OR maybe you were used to space and room to be free from connection (a.k.a. needy children) at certain times of the day. Now that space is gone with everyone home. Either way, that connection or lack of connection was a bright spot in our days, and it is gone.

3. The loss of stability.
Every day, we wake up to something new. New news stories, new texts from friends, new studies, new statistics, new emails from teachers, new messages from school systems, new information on family members. Every day is something new thrown at us that we must instantly adapt to. It is exhausting not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

The bottom line mamas, is we’re grieving, and it’s healthy and normal and it’s what moms everywhere are doing at this exact same moment. But it doesn’t feel good. It feels unnecessary and hard, mostly because we’re so busy doing and adapting and helping and figuring things out that we don’t have time to pause, breathe, and grieve.

So here are a few suggestions for this week:

Write it down. I am NOT a journaler. Journaling just seems like another thing I have to remember to do and I struggle to commit to doing ANYTHING every single day. But I want you to take a moment and write down all the things you did this week. Seriously. Write down all the things you accomplished, down to emptying the dishwasher and wiping yogurt off the couch (happened to me this week). If a week is too much, just focus on today. You need to understand that you are doing so much for the people in your life. So it’s ok to feel tired, alone, empty, scared or downright sad. That feeling is DEPLETION. You are depleted from everything you’ve accomplished that you don’t even realize you’ve accomplished.

Connect. If you need MORE connection in your life, consider calling or FaceTiming a friend or your mother or someone in your family. Maybe it’s someone who is alone too and would love to hear from you, or a mom who’s feeling the same way you are. Not big into calling or talking on the phone? Then set time to sit down and have a text conversation with a friend. My bestie Kelly and I tend to do this after the kids are in bed and it is THERAPY for me. Friends are also telling me about a free app called House Party where you can play games with friends at other houses, or you can host a free movie viewing party via Netflix Party with your friends!

If you need LESS connection with people in your life while everyone is home and underfoot, plan it. Now. There will always be someone who needs you. Something that needs to get done. It will get done whether or not you make time for yourself. Set an alarm in your phone and stick to it when it goes off. Whether it’s time for a long, hot shower with the bathroom door locked (otherwise you will NEVER be alone for long), or some social media scrolling time in the bed, or some reading time, or a walk outdoors, or just anything that fills you up and gives you space.

Move. Seriously ladies, we’re getting less steps and movement these weeks under house arrest and are likely to eat more because it’s right there in our kitchen. So do SOMETHING this week. Anything. Play monkey in the middle with the kids outside. Stream any of the plentiful free workouts offered these days by places like Women’s Health Magazine (streaming free on Instragram live stories in the morning), Gold’s Gym, Beachbody, etc. Get the kids involved. Use it as a gym class activity! Just get some movement. It’s not about calories or your weight or any kind of fat loss. But statistically speaking, it will actually make you FEEL better. And we can all use some endorphins in our lives these days.

The moral of the story, ladies, is that we’re all grieving but haven’t had time to do so. We’re grieving the loss of normalcy, the loss of connection with others (or maybe even with ourselves), and the loss of stability, with new things thrown at us every day. None of us have had time to properly grieve because we’re in the middle of all the doing, along with a healthy dose of worrying. Know that you aren’t alone, and that this time in life and in history is hard for everyone. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

Take care of you. Pause. Breathe. This is all just a season of life, and it will eventually pass.

-Lauren