Life of an organizer during COVID-19

2020 has been an unforgettable year. Most certainly, we will all have something to share in the future regarding our thoughts, day-to-day lives and experiences of living through the pandemic of COVID-19.

The past year has brought an array of emotions from sorrow and depression, loneliness and despair, to productivity, and prayer, empathy and care. The highs have been high (community care) and the lows have been deeply low. Suicide rates are up, loneliness is soul destroying and the institutionalized implementation of staying home has not always helped some marriages and, sadly, deepened already existing cracks. For some families, quarantine has only brought them closer.

If you have remained calm, hopeful and able to endure, you have succeeded. To have survived, is to have thrived. It’s no small achievement, especially as our everyday lives change on a confusing, sometimes hour-to-hour basis. People are frustrated and angry with the government, the endless changes in law and order. Working parents have turned homes into offices and had to figure out balancing work and homeschooling. Quarantine and Covid tests have become the norm.

In many cases we have all been organizers. Planning has become essential to a parents’ everyday living. Lists, lists and more lists: meal planning, online grocery shopping, weekly schedules for home schooling and distance learning schedules, including trying to accommodate different ages and interests. Wearing ourselves thin cooking, cleaning, playing, teaching – on repeat.

As a professional organizer, I fall into the category of people who try to be as productive as possible when faced with something like lockdown. I have felt the need for organization more than ever. For me, hyper-organization keeps me sane and calm! I am blessed with a lot of energy. When I heard my family was all going into quarantine, my immediate reaction was to make a realistic bucket list of things to do/fix around the home. Painting the walls in the lounge was one project, getting the kids involved in the gardening, having family meals together and reading books in the evenings. Do not read perfection into this: it is simply how I cope. Have I totally lost it at my family on numerous occasions? You bet!

I, like most parents, go to sleep at night and think: tomorrow is another day. Some days are magical, some days are painful. We are hopeful that the end is in sight, but it is hardest to really feel this now, when most of us have reached the point of throwing our hands in the air and saying “enough”. However you have survived through this year, be proud of yourself. Growth comes through difficulty. Going forward, I wish us only good health, love, and a lot of inhale, exhale.

Happy 2021!