A year like ten years
Everyone is talking about how the pandemic has turned our lives upside down. But that's not quite true. Rather, I think something has happened to time. It's as if someone had switched to double fast forward and years had passed instead of twelve months.
One clue to my suspicions: something seems to have happened with my children. I've been catching my son studying a lot recently - and I can't remember that ever being the case before. I don't know if it was the school system, the son or me as a mum. But his school career has been a tough one.
«He could do so much more if he wanted to,» was the mantra in discussions with parents at primary level. «He shouldn't cause so much trouble,» was the mantra at secondary level. «If it goes on like this, we can't guarantee anything.» And it always resonated in my ears: «No wonder, with a mum like that who only has her job on her mind.»
I would have liked to encourage him to have better work discipline, but I never found out how to do that. I talked to him, to the teachers, head teachers and social workers, we signed contracts and promised rewards.
I would never have thought that the little fruit would mature into a young man in a single summer.
It didn't help much. We were all happy when he finished first secondary school last summer. And I was a little worried when I thought about what it would be like at secondary school. But something happened during the pandemic. Not only do I catch him studying, but I'm also told at the parents' meeting: We are completely satisfied.
Which of course makes me proud. I would never have thought that in a single summer the little fruit would mature into a young man who takes his school duties so seriously. I would like to say that the coronavirus year has also set a positive process in motion in me. But that would be a lie.
Not that I got lazy last year, to stick with the fruit. I've kept my work ethic high and I've also been able to get some good things out of working from home. However, a certain fermentation process has now set in and if I stay at home for much longer, fruit flies will soon be buzzing around me.
I'm ready for this haunting to finally be over. Of course, I know that's wishful thinking. That we can't just go back, that it won't be like it was before. My children make me all the more optimistic.
Perhaps everything will be easier once time is running at a normal pace again.
As young people, they must find the restrictions imposed by the pandemic particularly painful. But their youth seems to be helping them to accept the unfamiliar situation. To remain confident and make the best of it.
I don't know if I still have so much youth in me that I can do this just as effortlessly. But I know that I can take my children as an example. Perhaps everything will be easier when time returns to its normal pace. And if not, I still have the example of my children, because their time is yet to come. That makes me happy despite everything.
