Who are you quarantined with?

Who are you quarantined with? 

I am fortunate to be in the presence of my immediate family during this pandemic.  In times of difficulty it really does matter the people that are with us.  My parents have been my rock, they have helped me maintain a positive attitude especially during a few months that I thought I was slipping into an old familiar depressive state.  Their laughter echoes throughout the house, a joyful sound that I have grown accustomed to.  Since, working from home I have been able to have lunch with them daily just the three of us (well four if you include a black-shadow-of-a-wolf called Francis) and those interactions have allowed me to know them more deeply and for my admiration only to increase.

Lately, though things have been a little difficult for them.  While Covid remained a background worry, these past weeks the virus has claimed the lives of people close to us.  First a childhood friend of mom’s and a couple weeks later my aunt.  These losses hit my parents deeply, I could see the pain mixed with fear in their eyes.  In our culture, it’s important to be present in times of trouble – but due to Covid restrictions and overall the danger of travel for people their age they were unable to accompany my family in Mexico for burial services.  This inability to come together in times of pain really hit hard. 

Yet, we are lucky.  We have one-another.  In the first months of this life changing pandemic I was the one battling with my mental health and my folks were the ones helping me stay afloat.  Now that things have turned, I find myself offering them a little silliness to lighten the bleak times and coming with creative alternatives to show our support even from a distance. 

If anything, this past year of isolation has shown me that we can’t make it on our own.  We all need others to help us in our journey.  Connection with each other is what makes life worth it.  While I have missed the freedom to go out wherever and whenever I want – I have been in isolation with my best people.  In times like these, that’s the biggest blessing.

Today Was A Good Day

It was a good week.

I never imagined that my first year back as an educator would be hijacked by virtual learning.  In my arsenal of preparation, I did not plan for a pandemic, quarantine or teaching with a camera to students on the other side of the screen.  It’s super uncomfortable for this camera-shy gal, to spend my days in front of a camera.  My dreams all take place behind the scenes, yet this national crisis has me daily teaching, motivating, inspiring kids to continue working on towards graduation.  Some days I struggle to leave my bed, knowing that I have to turn on my camera and work in isolation trying to bring feelings of unity and hope to my kids.

In in-person learning, I can read the class, I can see when I am losing my students or when they are excited and really capturing the lesson; but, in virtual learning I speak into this black abyss and am not sure how the students are doing.  Since, I have issues being on camera, I empathize and do not require my students to have their cameras on unless they want to.  This means that most turn theirs off.  Yet, I have noticed that they participate more when their cameras are off.  On days that I don’t have technological issues I rejoice – but most days I find that my internet lags, or that some kids can’t open a document, or that the platform I use is failing to function and I spend my time trying to fix these technological issues that learning seems to happen very little.  I used to struggle with the drop in learning that this pandemic has caused, but I have learned that just showing up to class and being there for my kids is the big lesson.  Forcefully turning on my camera and being present is me letting them know that they have someone who will show up no matter what.

Virtual learning is not as rewarding, but there are days that even all the challenges cannot keep some good from reaching me.  This week, I had a student who on her first day of class arrived crying.  She suffers from severe anxiety and this past year I have watched her grow and become more confident.  This week she surprised me when she joined our virtual run club and two Direct Instruction classes.  She has blossomed from an insecure girl, terrified of others into a student doing extra while working towards her high school diploma and college.  She and I have developed a deep bond and watching her excel has been such a victory…

Then I have another kid, a teenage mom and she is always sending me picture of her baby, now six months old.  When she sends me updates on her baby, I can’t help but feel so darn special!  I met her when she was pregnant and to watch her blossom into a mom while continuing her education has been a joy.  Sometimes I get so focused on the technical aspect of my job, that I miss how much my students are developing and achieving great things even in this challenging time.

It took me almost a year to get into distance learning, but now I am starting to see beyond the challenges and see the fruits of this difficult process.  

Agape

 Do you love me? Jesus challenged Peter with these words three times.  Each time challenging Peter to a deeper love and just like Peter each of us go through life learning to love to a greater capacity.  We are in a love university which ends with death as our graduation, meaning that as long as we have breath we need to grow in love. 

In our teenage years we begin to dabble with love and our emotions take high precedence, but to remain with that definition of love is to not uncover the real gift and only be satisfied with the wrapping.  Yes, love makes us feel supreme, there’s no greater high than to love and be loved; but emotions are capricious and fleeting.  Feelings are here today and gone tomorrow, but true love remains.  Love begins the moments that emotions subside with action and dedication.

I look at my father’s garden.  Everyday he is out there tending, pruning, watering… Yet, when he travels to Mexico for a month or two his garden browns and withers.  In order, for his garden to give its natural beauty it requires a lot of attention. A lot a of action from the hands of its gardener.  If the care stops death comes to all those flowers. 

God in His infinite wisdom made us stewards of His creation.  He knew that man was not made to be alone, but thrives in relationship. In relationship with nature, each other, and Him.  Yet, He gave each of us the gift of freewill to choose how deep those relationships go and time to tend, prune and water our lot so that maybe like Peter we too would be challenged towards agape.

From a girl raised with Mexican soap operas that highly exaggerate love as uncontrollable passion, I am still learning that love is a choice followed by actions.  It might be a less romantic definition, but it certainly is a healthy one and the true way that transforms the world.           

Three Weekend Feel Goods

 After a challenging week both for our country and personally tracking my kids to remind them that school was back in session, I am so ready for the weekend.  While there’s a lot of chatter about everything that is happening, I want to focus on things that bring a little joy into my life.  Thus, my three weekend feel goods came about to remind me to invest my energy on the positive.

Audiobooks! This new year my resolution is to read more, however sometimes my eyes hurt so much from being on the computer all day that reading hurts.  Thus, a great solution is audiobooks and the best part is that my local library has a great selection for free.  Just download the Hoopla App and login using your library card and you have thousands of titles at your disposal.

DIY Projects.  I have been back at working with leather handbags and restoring items to give them a second life.  My little projects always make me feel so earthly-utterly responsible because I save items from landfills and connect them to people who will use them after I restore them.  Today, I am listing a Zadig and Voltaire crossbody bag on my eBay store to find it a new home. 

Mass.  Even if I find it a bit distracting outside, and even though I now attend on my own without my parents I am so happy to have this tangible experience.  I am so grateful to be able to worship in community and to receive communion, my nourishment for the week ahead.

Even in quarantine with the rising fear of contagion there’s always ways to live a full life.  I haven’t spent so much quality time with my family and maybe because they are the most interesting, genuine people I am still fascinated by them.  Even if I have become quite agoraphobic, I thank God for giving me all this down time to relax and learn to enjoy.  Though I struggle with motivating myself to do things, I am learning to enjoy the new lifestyle that at the moment our current circumstances dictate.  

Happy New Year

I was looking back at twenty-twenty and I realized that even though I struggled with my mental health due to the quarantine and though I had a mini-breakdown due to the stress of virtual teaching not to mention a long period of debilitating depression from lacking my faith support groups, in addition to only having enough energy to take care of the main responsibilities – the tough year also brought with it many blessings...   

After a period of going without Mass, our Catholic Church brought them back outside. 

I discovered that I have an aquatic dog who loves (an understatement) the beach!

My parish placed the Blessed Sacrament outside so that we can worship Him in the parking lot from the comfort of our car.

It was the year that I was able to wear masks outside of Halloween.

Francis turned one and had a quarantine themed birthday party in isolation.

We took our first family trip to Big Bear and created many great memories en familia.

I completed my Master’s in Education after a more than a ten-year hiatus.

I discovered headbands- even during quarantine one must remain fashionable!

Francis was blessed for the first time during the annual Blessing of the Animals.

I completed my first year back as a teacher and celebrated with a virtual end of the semester party.

I turned four times ten- a milestone birthday and even though I couldn’t travel as I had hoped it was just as memorable at home with my family.

I ended the year in good health with my family and one super spoiled pup.

It was a tough year, earlier in the week mom lost a childhood friend to Covid, luckily next Friday we will be able to attend the outside funeral services.  This loss brought with it many feelings, specially fear.  During this past year, I haven’t really been frighten by the whole virus, but having it hit close to home brought with it the fear of keeping my folks safe.  Thus, though I had two weeks off for winter break, I spent most of it at home trying to keep my parents safe.  Hopefully, this new year will provide the cure so that we don’t have to live in fear of getting others possibly deadly sick. There's much hope to this new chapter called 2021. Happy New Year!

 

  

Christmas 2020

How was your Covid Christmas? 

It was difficult to not feel a little different this year during the Christmas season.  Though Zoom replaced some of my usual holiday gatherings with friends and I was able to celebrate Jesus’ big day with my family this season sure felt different.  None more than Nochebuena, our first Christmas Eve (since my reversion) that we haven’t gone to midnight service.  Our parishes weren’t offering it because Mass is back to being held outside again.  It was depressing not being able to go kiss and adore baby Jesus in the manger after Nochebuena service like we have done for so many years now.  

Christmas Day proved equally different because I attended Mass with only my siblings.  My parents are both retired and at the age that the virus seems to hit most severely so we have been trying to keep them safe.  In addition, they are avid news viewers and I think this has made them a little more anxious about going out. It didn’t help, that aunt called and informed us that all her kids are infected.  Yet, what hit my mom worse is that a childhood friend of hers is battling for her life with the virus in the hospital.  We have been praying for her as a family and hope that she can recover even though it seems unlikely.

We are the lucky ones thus far because other than quarantine we have been doing well. The consequences of the virus have been felt in ways that is probably sinful to complain because as I celebrated this Christmas surrounded once more by my parents and those who I love most our hearts are full.  Not being able to go to Midnight or Christmas Day service with my parents made me realize how much I take for granted.  It felt incomplete to be able to attend without mi familia; yet, when I helped mom with our annual tamale batch, or when we gathered together to pray and eat dinner or when we opened gifts this year those moments felt so much more special.  Not being able to worship together during Mass only amplified the moments where we could be one family and I had to thank  Jesus for giving me so much this troublesome year.

Penny's Bakeoff Challenge

This week was such an emotionally good week.  While the pandemic left us no choice, but to try are best with virtual I still felt connected to my kids and coworkers.  Yesterday, our region provided a cooking lesson type virtual party for staff.  They hired the local cooking school that we bring in to teach our students culinary skills, but this time for the staff.  As an avid “British Bake Off” and “Nailed It” viewer I felt like my dream of being a contestant on said shows were brought to life.  During the three-hour lesson I scrambled around my kitchen, thinking I need to buy sharper knives, and a scraper and a better mixer- I guess I just couldn’t face the reality that perhaps the cook was the one with the deficiencies (wink).   

It was my first time working with real pasta dough and my goodness I just got a new appreciation for Italian chefs! How in the world can anyone cut the pasta in perfect lines and keep it from becoming mush!  I also got experience cooking with a timer- most of the time I was rushing trying to keep up with the instructions coming from my computer.  I think the chef, thought that teachers are great students, but we kept asking her why our dishes weren’t looking like hers, what to do when we messed up and to please slow down!  At a time, I thought the chef looked annoyed by our inadequacy.  In the end my pasta turned out like a pile of mush that even Francis didn’t want to try it.  I was thinking, “I am cooking dinner for my family,” but if I was competing on “Nailed It” I would have been in last place.  That’s how disastrous my linguine carbonara looked and tasked to match.

In the end I learned, that I am a baker and while I love to eat, as a cook I am still a work in process.  My dessert, pistachio biscotti, turned out yummy and looked much like the chefs.  Francis wouldn’t try it either, but my dad and nephew had a slice and that made all the mess and dishes that I had to do after worth the stress of being in my schools cooking competition. 

My Lady of Guadalupe Altar

I had a milestone birthday recently and I felt all this pressure to make it special after all I am the girl that still has themed annual celebrations.  Maybe the lockdown due to the pandemic gave me too much time to think and I kept the hope that by November I would be able to travel.  As the day grew closer and I realized that things weren’t changing, rather the upcoming holidays meant more restrictions- out went the last hope that I would celebrate around the world.  My last hope was that I would be able to take a weekend trip to visit la Morenita en el D.F.  Yet, when I shared with my parents they jokingly said, “make sure you book a hotel to stay at for two weeks afterwards to quarantine.”  Then a friend further sealed my plan when she told me that her husband was stuck in Mexico after contracting the virus in an emergency visit he had to make.

Though, I ended up having a simple, quite-enjoyable celebration at home, I felt like every time I plan on visiting the Virgencita something keeps me from going.  I was moping around thinking about my unfulfilled plan, when I read something that made me smile Grande!  Our Lady comes to all of us, she’s not in quarantine in her Templo, she is with us. When we call to her she comes to our assistance. 

This year has been quite difficult. I know that to complain about not being able to travel is quite petty when people are struggling with real troubles.  Yet, I miss the freedom to do those things that nurtured my being.  These past few months, I have struggled with my mental health.  Initially not being able to go to Mass or attend faith groups really messed with my head because the things that kept me sane were taken away.  I am a person who finds the greatest fulfillment in spending quality time with others and no matter how great Zoom is, it just doesn’t replace the intimacy of being together under one roof. This week I was put on a fourteen-day quarantine from work, after a student tested positive for Covid and though I am able to work from home, I miss leaving the house.

As I prepared for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I realized that she is with me.  I don’t need to go to a specific location to be with her, she comes to me!  So, for the first time I built an altar for her and it made me so happy to pray the final novena day in front of it. 

My Love for Christmas Ornaments

When I was a little girl my elementary hosted the book fair every year before Christmas break.  They always sold little figurines or ornaments in addition to books and I would always save a few bucks to do my Christmas shopping.  Every year I had enough for two gifts and every year I bought two gifts one for my parents and the other for my sister.  Even then, I knew that my sister’s love language was receiving gifts.  Every year I would study the figurines and ornaments before picking the two I would spurge on and then I would go home and wrap them satisfactorily putting them under our tree.  In my child’s heart I imagined the joy that my recipients would express when opening my gifts… The first year my sister opened the gift I saw the disappointment in her face, but I thought I had just chosen the wrong figurine.  However, the years that followed she would open my gifts while saying, “I don’t know why, I even open these when I know how lame they are.”  Sometimes, I would have her open both thinking that perhaps she would like one of the two ornaments I was gifting, but every year I never got it right. 

Now when I go thrifting and I find ornaments I think about who gifted the wrong figurine in hopes of brightening another person’s day.  What little child went to her book fair and instead of buying something for herself spent all she had on another?  I think of the millions of gifts that were wrong and end up in a pile of rescue me from the landfill.  I have learned that I cannot take all of them home, but every Christmas season I end up with a couple more saved ornaments that make the little girl in me exceedingly happy!  This has turned into a collection- a religious ornament collection. Some are worth a pretty penny because they are glass-blown, hand-painted by renowned artists and others are probably still found in book fairs across the country. 

Every year when I take out my ornaments, I study each one and it sends all sorts of happy into my body.  Each one is special to me and each one for the most part has been rescued from the landfill.  I have pieces from some of the top ornament designers that survived not being wanted and have found a home in my tree.  This year as I put up my tree I was afraid that Francis would knock it down confusing my ornaments for toys, but so far, he has shown little interest in my little pleasures.  This year while I put them up my sister said, “Wow, we have so many really nice ornaments…”  And that put the biggest smile on my face!    

The Graduate

Sometimes dreams get put on hold for a little bit- thirteen years to be exact… 

After, my Bipolar diagnoses I left teaching.  It took me some time (years) to learn to function normally with my disability and during this time I thought that I would never again work in education so all activities that surrounded my teaching dream were left in limbo.  I was one class away from my Master’s when I had my mental breakdown and I never finished because I thought that I would never be able to perform that job.  This year Corona Virus and all, I completed my Master’s degree in Education!

Every time in the past thirteen years when I thought of completing my degree just for the sake of finishing what I had started the pain of opening the wound of a failed dream froze me.  I couldn’t think of education without puncturing the scab enough for the mixture of pain and waste- wasted years pursuing a dream that never materialized to come like a towering wave. The thought of being surrounded by students with tangible illusions of leading kids in a classroom, students who would get to live out their fantasies made me sick with defeat.  I lacked the humility to see others succeed in the field while my health limitations kept me from reaching a goal I had made as child playing teacher in my garage.          

I don’t know if I would have ever gone back to finish my degree had it not been for this year of redemption.  After waiting a week, too scared to call back a school to confirm an interview appointment at a job that I don’t remember applying for – I was hired as a teacher.  Before I was hired, I made a plan on how I was going to deal with stress- what my techniques would be for when things became too hectic, I was even considering weekly therapy.  I created a plan so that this time I would deal with things that brought my demise in the past and succeed as teacher.  However, throughout this whole transition God’s hand was at work returning everything that I had lost due to my disability.  I found myself dealing with stress in positive ways and not shutting down when things got overbearing.  Prepping myself (mostly my mind) so much in advance made things manageable, so much so that I gained confidence enough to return to school and finish that last class. 

I didn’t plan it to be during a national pandemic, but it happened that I graduated during a virtual ceremony.  That might add some interest in the future when I tell my story about how I returned to education during the worst time to be a teacher and managed to succeed because with God all things are truly possible.